Energy infrastructure

06-05-2022 2:14am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119021789#Comment_119021789

Yeah I get what you are saying. It's still early days yet to see how hydrogen is going to be used on small scale applications.

Larger scale i.e. Grid scale energy storage, is where the viability and economic case will be and is being made for it. Although I'm still not convinced we're going to see emission free grid scale use of hydrogen but I'm hoping to be proved wrong.

gjim · 06-05-2022 10:04am

Yes, I hope so too although I think we're further away from it than you'd imagine given the attention hydrogen gets.

It is touted as the missing piece of the decarbonisation puzzle - long term storage of large amounts of energy. I'm not sure what the alternatives to hydrogen are.

Pumped hydro is proven tech but doesn't seem to scale in terms of storage capacity - for example, Fengning is touted as the biggest in the world but only can store 40GWh. For perspective, Ireland consumes about 70GWh per day according to my calculation.

Also I'm bored of hearing how flow batteries can solve the problem given there seems to be little to actually show for the investment and hype so far - the technology seems feasible but no-one has shown how to scale it economically.

The other tech you see lots of videos on - stacking blocks with cranes - is just daft - the less said about it the better. I can't stomach more than a few minutes of thunderf00t's sarcasm at a time but his youtube video fairly demolishes the idea.

There's also compressed or liquified air - which seems tricky to me but I don't know much about it.

On the other hand maybe it will be possible without seasonal level storage. The problem might go away with simply over-providing cheap wind and solar capacity, complemented by daily or weekly storage using hydro/li-ion, demand management and investing heavily in interconnectors and transmission systems.

Sam Russell · 06-05-2022 10:22am

No-one travelling by air would expect to own their own aircraft. (Well excluding the wealthiest 1%). So why do motorists not consider alternatives?

So, why not rent a Go-car or similar for those occasional long journeys, or even frequent short journeys. For city/urban dwellers it makes complete sense if they are highly available, and cost effective. It would be possible to replace the second (and third) car in a household. For rural dwellers it would work for those not too remote, but one-off house that are 5 km or more up a boreen will always be difficult to accommodate.

Now, for those who use BEV cars to move around on long journeys and need a quick refuel to keep moving the swapping batteries would be a possible solution. It would require a standard battery pack, but that could be an additional battery to the short range one in the vehicle as standard and as designed. So we have a BEV with a range of, say 100 km, with a position in the boot for a booster battery that would provide a further 100 km. Changeover time say 5 mins. Would be attractive for many as it would make the standard car lighter and cheaper for everyday, but easily 'boosted' for longer journeys.

We need to think other that diesel cars being replaced on a one to one with BEV cars providing identical utility.

timmyntc · 06-05-2022 10:31am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119022496#Comment_119022496

people dont use airplanes daily, even most rich.

People do use their cars daily, between commuting to work, school runs, extracurricular activities for kids, you would be doing very well to get by only renting a car on occasion.

josip · 06-05-2022 10:35am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119022496#Comment_119022496

Motorists are able to drive their own car. Most people require someone else to fly the plane.

Sam Russell · 06-05-2022 11:19am

You are missing my point completely. My point about flying is that nearly no-one even thinks about owning their own plane or even renting one. Why is it assumed that the only way of getting about is by using a car? Look at how many children are driven to school in the family 4x4 the whole 2 km right up to the front door of the school.

Not everyone is a motorist - and many are too young or too old to drive, and many never learnt to drive in the first place. How do they currently get around? We need to be cognisant of that and provide an alternative method of getting about for those people, and by doing so, provide an alternative for all members of society. This can be done only by extending the availability of public transport, providing safe infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians, and making those alternatives the norm.

That is an uphill task, and unlikely to be achieved until it is too late.

hans aus dtschl · 06-05-2022 3:59pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119021880#Comment_119021880

You should give the "Green cnuts" at JCB a shout I'd say. School 'em.

RandomViewer · 06-05-2022 4:14pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119022770#Comment_119022770

Public transport has to be clean and junkie free, any bus company failing to meet the standard have to be punished immediately, contract lost and driver banned for life.

RandomViewer · 06-05-2022 4:21pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119024334#Comment_119024334

Tax avoiding skangers, wouldn't touch their muck. JCB research is usually a cover for donations to the British Conservative party.

hans aus dtschl · 06-05-2022 4:22pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119024425#Comment_119024425

Well look, we can agree on something at least!

Fantana2 · 06-05-2022 9:13pm

https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-solar-and-wind-power-by-country/

Didn't realise we were so high.

Capt'n Midnight · 07-05-2022 10:37am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119025522#Comment_119025522

We are #1 in % of electricity from onshore wind. Our grid can take 75% renewables, and hydro and we'll soon have enough interconnectors to export equivalent to a third of our record demand.

Offshore wind is 25MW. 7 turbines from 2004. So room for improvement. There's offshore sand banks parallel to the east coast and another the extends out from the Kish lighthouse so there's room for GW's more.

Add hydro to the map and places like Uruguay and Norway shoot up, show Scotland as a separate country and it would be at 100%.

I don't think it's happened yet but there will be times when France will be getting more from renewables than from Nuclear.

bob mcbob · 07-05-2022 1:03pm

Behind a paywall but the headline gives the idea

Britain will have excess electricity supplies for more than half of the year by 2030 as a huge expansion of wind and solar power transforms the energy system, a new analysis suggests. Energy storage technologies, including batteries and electrolysers to make hydrogen, will need to be deployed at massive scale to prevent this surplus electricity going to waste, according to LCP, a consultancy.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/wind-and-solar-boom-will-bring-energy-surplus-zplgq39rn

Banana Republic 1 · 07-05-2022 1:19pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119021880#Comment_119021880

Your in the wrong thread. Posters here actually know about stuff, like science for example

Markcheese · 07-05-2022 1:40pm

And just think what could be done with floating wind turbines off the south and west coast - it could be vast ,

The anchors would be probably be local concrete - the turbines and platforms would probably be assembled in port and towed out when weather permits .. there could be decades of work assembling and installing them ..

RandomViewer · 07-05-2022 2:41pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119027722#Comment_119027722

You left out the "The" , With Greens it's "The Science"

Sam Russell · 07-05-2022 4:32pm

Hardly a breath of wind today. Latest is 114 MW - that is less that 3% of max ever.

antoinolachtnai · 07-05-2022 6:17pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119027809#Comment_119027809

No real reason I can see that these wouldn’t be fully assembled in the shipyard in Europe or further afield and towed direct to their final location. It will make sense to do servicing locally for sure.

Capt'n Midnight · 07-05-2022 10:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119028411#Comment_119028411

Back in February Wind energy reached a peak of 96% of all-island demand for electricity on Sunday at 00.30am

We have until 2050 to fully develop storage systems.

Sam Russell · 07-05-2022 11:52pm

I have been monitoring the Grid dashpot and am surprised just how variable the wind is.

Capt'n Midnight · 08-05-2022 10:15am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119030371#Comment_119030371

Battery based Fast Frequency Response kicks in at 180 milliseconds. Takes longer for a weather front to cross an individual wind turbine.

At the other end of the scale the ESB's project to store enough hydrogen to run the grid for a month in disused gas wells is one way to not have to worry about the variability of wind.

Wind is variable. And like nuclear is utterly dependent on having backup like hydro, interconnectors, storage, demand shedding and steam power. I'd argue that drops in wind are more predictable and easier to manage than nuclear outages. Installing excess wind means you have full power most of the time and can store or export a surplus a lot of the time.

Over on Renewable Energies DIY people are getting solar panels for 35c per Watt from local suppliers so harvesting energy isn't an issue. Storing energy is the challenge. A cheap, clean Energy to Fuel technology would allow us to keep most of our existing transport , heating and power infrastructure.

Sam Russell · 08-05-2022 11:02am

@Capt'n Midnight

I understand all of that. I am just surprised at just how wind can go from loads too much to nothing, and how nothing can last a week. Now off-shore will help because the spread of the turbines will reduce the blocking highs from being so all encompassing, but not rule them out completely. The wind will start blowing one side first, and still be blowing while it gets to the other side. Diversity always helps.

Solar will help, both grid and domestic, as will domestic storage batteries, whether these are specifically for storage, or are just diverted EV car batteries.

Biogas will also help. Every farm can have its own digester feeding the gas grid which will also make a difference. Perhaps the biogas will power the tractor and harvester.

We will get there.

Danzy · 08-05-2022 11:21am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118933189#Comment_118933189

If people were concerned about bogs as carbon sinks and their ecology.

They would stop Coillte etc planting them.

That's destroyed the very most of the bogs here..

Forget the bank of turf or the windmill, ironically both of those have saved bogs from near complete destruction.

08-05-2022 11:25am

Correct me if I'm wrong, but afaik Coillte plantings in peatlands are only done where the peat has been fully drained and harvested.

They are not planting trees in viable peatlands as no trees would grow in such conditions.

marno21 · 08-05-2022 12:51pm

Article on the front of the Business Post this morning that Eirgrid is now planning on importing 600MW of emergency generation capacity at a cost of €300m per year for the next 2 winters.

RandomViewer · 08-05-2022 3:02pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119031248#Comment_119031248

Coillte were the only buyers for hill land in the 80s and 90s, blanket bog as it would be known, this would have been exclusively private land that may have had one or two turf banks on a few hundred acres. EU rules changed which excluded Coillte from claiming grants so they stopped planting on any great scale

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/coillte-to-lose-39m-in-grants-following-eu-ruling-1.394885#:~:text=Coillte%20Teoranta%2C%20the%20State%20forestry,were%20entitled%20to%20the%20payments.