60% of Our Electricity Coming From Wind Tonight !

http://smartgriddashboard.eirgrid.com/#all

Impressive !

But overall it wasn't a windy winter.

Dardania

Deleted User wrote: »

http://smartgriddashboard.eirgrid.com/#all

Impressive !

But overall it wasn't a windy winter.

Very impressive indeed.
And it not being a windy day just means that the installed capacity is good enough to meet demand to such a high level on a normal-ish day...which is great generation planning

Not windy today ? eah, yes it is, pretty windy !

60.14% !

unkel

Nice site, Mad_Lad!

Dardania wrote: »

Very impressive indeed.
And it not being a windy day just means that the installed capacity is good enough to meet demand to such a high level on a normal-ish day

No it isn't

Looks like we can't produce enough electricity for ourselves at peak times, but rather than build expensive capacity for that one hour per day (between 5:15PM and 6:30PM), we import it from the Brits. The interconnector impact is very impressive :cool:

We export to the Brits most other times of the day. How their peak usage over a day compared to their own capacity seems to be so different to ours is not obvious to me though. Maybe someone can explain.

I'd say it's more down to winding down the thermal plants. Though I'm no expert.

n97 mini

Modern gas fired plants (and maybe oil too) are load following and can ramp up and down as needed.

n97 mini

Explained nicely
http://ireland2050.ie/questions/what-types-of-power-plant-supply-our-electricity/

unkel

n97 mini wrote: »

Modern gas fired plants (and maybe oil too) are load following and can ramp up and down as needed.

But obviously can't ramp up to anywhere near our peak need around 6PM. We don't seem to have the total capacity for our own peak need. If the interconnector would break, we'd have blackouts around 6PM

And why do the Brits need / import our capacity during most other times of the day? Presumably their peak need is also around 6PM.

Jakey Rolling

Yes, impressive.

However, take a look at the data for just the past month and you'll find at least 3 days where wind generation was less than 100MW.

Our solution at present is to rely on the Interconnector to import from the the UK - given that it is not unusual for high pressure to cause lack of wind across both land masses then presumably they are supplying us with a large fraction nuclear generated leccy.

We really could do with a large scale storage facility pumped hydro, compressed air or a huge Tesla Powerwall to smooth out the inevitable troughs and peaks in renewable generation.

Jakey Rolling

Jakey Rolling wrote: »

Yes, impressive.

However, take a look at the data for just the past month and you'll find at least 3 days where wind generation was less than 100MW.

Our solution at present is to rely on the Interconnector to import from the the UK - given that it is not unusual for high pressure to cause lack of wind across both land masses then presumably they are supplying us with a large fraction nuclear generated leccy.

We really could do with a large scale storage facility pumped hydro, compressed air or a huge Tesla Powerwall to smooth out the inevitable troughs and peaks in renewable generation.

Plenty of leccy cars can take care of a lot of storage.

Jakey Rolling

Deleted User wrote: »

Plenty of leccy cars can take care of a lot of storage.

Yes, that should definitely be part of the long-term grid management strategy. Will obviously require a critical mass of EVs and properly smart meters in the home - did I read somewhere that ESB networks are pushing for mass installation of smart meters?

Edit: CER are driving this, latest round of consultations just completed. All talk of users availing of variable tariffs based on 30 min windows, no mention of feed-in-tariffs for power going out to the grid.

unkel

Jakey Rolling wrote: »

We really could do with a large scale storage facility pumped hydro.

I've been saying that for years, based on some idea I read about pumping sea water (with wind whenever it's available) up 200m into a massive artificial lake somewhere near the west coast and then using hydro for electricity dropping the water back down into the ocean

Apparently the project would cost too much to build, but I've never seen a decent cost / benefit analysis of it

n97 mini

unkel wrote: »

But obviously can't ramp up to anywhere near our peak need around 6PM. We don't seem to have the total capacity for our own peak need. If the interconnector would break, we'd have blackouts around 6PM

And why do the Brits need / import our capacity during most other times of the day? Presumably their peak need is also around 6PM.

Good question. It might be cheaper to import UK electricity at peak time than buy locally generated. Conversely at off peak our surplus is probably cheap enough that the Brits will buy it.

I haven't looked at total capacity in the system but I'd be fairly confident it can exceed peak demand.

L

unkel wrote: »

But obviously can't ramp up to anywhere near our peak need around 6PM. We don't seem to have the total capacity for our own peak need. If the interconnector would break, we'd have blackouts around 6PM

We've been without EWIC for the last few months actually because it had to be repaired. Over the last few years, Ireland's been without one or other (or both) interconnector relatively often. There were no blackouts because the interconnectors are mostly used to shuffle cheap energy around (they do other things as well, but lets keep this simple).

If you're interested, you can see how much surplus generation capacity the system is forecast to have for the next 10 years on page 47 of this. You'll notice it's more than the two interconnectors put together at the moment & will likely remain so as new generators announce they're being built.

unkel wrote: »

And why do the Brits need / import our capacity during most other times of the day? Presumably their peak need is also around 6PM.

There's a combination of factors but mostly the interconnectors are run on price - when Ireland's wholesale price drops below their price, they buy from us, when their price drops below ours, we buy from them.

L

Jakey Rolling wrote: »

Our solution at present is to rely on the Interconnector to import from the the UK

It isn't actually - wind is forecast in advance so a few more thermal generators are just brought online when the forecast is low.

The actual forecast error is quite low compared to the amount of reserve (quickly available replacement generation) the system needs to cover for losing one of the big thermal generators anyhow so it's not really a problem.

Jakey Rolling wrote: »

We really could do with a large scale storage facility pumped hydro, compressed air or a huge Tesla Powerwall to smooth out the inevitable troughs and peaks in renewable generation.

Grid scale storage comes up a lot talking about renewables - it's kind of a false friend. It's useful for a bunch of other reasons (Turlough Hill, the Irish pumped storage facility, is very valuable) but extremely costly/not ideal if you intend it just to be for smoothing out renewable generation as it's lossy to store energy rather than use it directly.

As a thought experiment, think of a simplified system with a gas generator, some wind generation and a pumped hydro unit @70% round trip efficiency. If you have an extra MWh of energy from wind, you can either store it (meaning you get back 0.7MWh if you have the space to store it), or burn a MWh less fuel on the gas generator (meaning you've effectively "stored" 1MWh as saved fuel - without the efficiency loss since it's coming directly off the output).

Now lets complicate the thought experiment a little. Say you have an interconnector to a different system & you can't back down your gas generator any further (it's already at the minimum amount of power it can generate at while being stable). You can either store the MWh (to get back 0.7MWh), or you can see if that interconnected system will pay you for it (since they can back down their own generators & save the fuel) - if they'll give you more than 0.7 times the price of a MWh of gas generation, you both win compared to the scenario where you stored it.

So, storage for renewables is more of a last resort when you can't either store it as fuel or money. Especially since you can saturate the amount of power you can store, and it's extremely expensive to build.

Any time I charge my Nissan Leaf I'm using any available renewable energy on the grid so there is no reason EV batteries can't be used for storage.

It's sad to think we can only use 60% of renewable energy, 350 MW is going to the U.K now. And all the storage probably won't solve this bit if the Grid can't take it yet.

L

Deleted User wrote: »

Any time I charge my Nissan Leaf I'm using any available renewable energy on the grid so there is no reason EV batteries can't be used for storage.

When storage is a natural part of the end application, it's pretty cool. Things like heat storage & EVs are moving in the right direction of using energy when it's available rather than demanding it always at a flick of a switch. That way of using power is a legacy of outdated growth strategies for electricity providers worldwide (growing demand made bigger generators viable which made it possible to produce more power at a cheaper price) & needs to change.

I'm looking forward to when someone gives consumers access to real time pricing and it becomes significantly cheaper to charge EVs & store heat in heat pump sources when energy is available rather than just burning fuel whenever we feel like warming a house or taking a trip.

Deleted User wrote: »

It's sad to think we can only use 60% of renewable energy, 350 MW is going to the U.K now. And all the storage probably won't solve this bit if the Grid can't take it yet.

Well, System Non-Synchronous Penetration is a rule of thumb covering a pile of grid stability criteria, doesn't include all renewables (hydro is synchronous for example) & it's steadily increasing every so often as experience gets built up handling it at existing levels. I wouldn't lose hope of seeing it at maybe 75% by 2020. There's also a degree of diminishing returns as situations where you have that much available energy become less and less frequent.

Also worth knowing that SNSP is roughly Wind/Demand & charging storage adds to demand - so you can squeeze more renewables onto the system with it.

Exporting 585 MW now, about 60% being used by our Grid, shame we can't use it all.

Jimmy Garlic

I am no fan of wind farms given that they are not a predictable source of power. That said I don't see why surplus couldn't be stored as liquid hydrogen. That would be the best way to store surplus for use at a later date. Of course we would need the infrastructure for that.

There's no use for hydrogen at present, not in vehicles at least. Hydrogen might be viable in HGV's but not in passenger cars or vans. It's too inefficient.

L

Jimmy Garlic wrote: »

I am no fan of wind farms given that they are not a predictable source of power. That said I don't see why surplus couldn't be stored as liquid hydrogen. That would be the best way to store surplus for use at a later date. Of course we would need the infrastructure for that.

They are a predictable source of power (that's what forecasting is for) - just a variable one.

Hydrogen conversion is around 30% round trip efficient. So quite a lot worse than regular storage techs unless you actually need Hydrogen for something.