Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Energy infrastructure

1114115117119120172

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 7,102 ✭✭✭plodder


    Incredible stuff from ex ESB head

    Speaking on Today with Claire Byrne, Mr Moore said that while Germany has 100 days of gas storage, Ireland has none.

    He said while the country had the opportunity in the past to create storage "we chose not to do it".

    He described Ireland's decision not to build an LNG terminal off the Irish coast as "quite extraordinary".

    "We don't have any gas storage in Ireland, which is quite unusual because nearly every other European country has gas storage," Mr Moore said.

    When the Ukraine invasion kicked-off, Germany made an immediate decision to build two LNG terminals. We've had a project on the back burner for years, but not a whiff of it being revived.

    https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/0711/1309627-energy-supply/



  • Posts: 0 Gwen Damaged Pita


    We've had a project on the back burner for years, but not a whiff of it being revived.

    You mean the one thats going through the planning process right now and is with ABP and pending a decision in Sept? That one?



  • Registered Users Posts: 7,102 ✭✭✭plodder


    I'm not aware of any LNG project going through the planning process right now. Link?



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭gjim


    I'm not sure what storage you're talking about there? Existing viable storage technology (battery and hydro) is really only economical for matching daily demand or very slightly longer periods. Charging batteries (or pumping water into a reservoir) and leaving the energy sit there for weeks or months just cannot come close to working financially. You need to cycle between buying low and selling high daily/regularly to recover the cap-ex.

    In this regard, storage is a better compliment to the intermittency of solar than it is for wind, actually.

    Grid scale solar is absolutely the solution Ireland needs. It's somewhat anti-correlated with wind so a good blend of wind and solar will result in a much lower overall volatility than one or the other alone. Every other northern European country has realised the same and with the rock-bottom prices for panels, are piling into solar. Even the UK already has 17GW of solar deployed.

    The land-use thing is a red herring. There is no shortage of land - there are millions of hectares of completely unproductive land in the country. Even ignoring that, 60% of the land in the country is being used just to grow grass which is not a particularly productive use of land. To support say 10GW of solar PV (probably enough for the next 10 years or so) would use up a little of one tenth of 1% of the land in the country.

    Ireland is lagging way behind our neighbours in regard to solar and off-shore wind. Solar has the great advantage that we can catch up relatively quickly. It doesn't require big upgrades to the transmission system - which are always prone to extreme NIMBY opposition. It's economic even at the scale of 10s of MW so can be distributed around the country/grid in relatively small pieces. It also has the potential to be far less visually intrusive than wind turbines and is completely silent. For Ireland to forego the advantages of modern grid-scale solar tech would be an act of self-harm.



  • Posts: 0 Gwen Damaged Pita


    That's the latest news, pushing the decision back to Sept.

    The application to ABP

    To be honest I can't see a decision on it this year though but maybe ABP will surprise me



  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 7,102 ✭✭✭plodder


    Seems to be happening under the radar. Has the previous issue relating to the interconnector levy been resolved? Hard to see the project going ahead without that being resolved. But, the case for alternative sources of supply is much stronger now, post Ukraine.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,760 ✭✭✭Apogee


    Government have launched their consultation on a 'hydrogen strategy' ->https://www.gov.ie/en/consultation/5c087-consultation-on-developing-a-hydrogen-strategy-for-ireland/

    Most interesting bit is list of current hydrogen projects:

    The Mercury project is attached to a proposed 75MW windfarm. Not listed on MayoCoCo yet, only an application for a meteorogical mast. If this goes ahead, it could be the second hydrogen production facility in Mayo.




  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,537 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    So called "smart" stuff isn't. People leave them on the defaults so they all kick in at the same time with predictable results.

    Zhang and Lee also found that energy-saving mechanisms built into smart thermostats are less effective than advertised, with most homeowners only seeing energy savings of 5-8 percent, as opposed to the 25-30 percent they're capable of.

    I've wondered if just having water, room and storage heaters look at mains frequency deviations would be easier.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,412 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    Would that work if a lot of frequency detecting devices all kicked in at the same time ?

    So half the countries smart devices or smart meters all detect the same power surplus on the grid , and switch on ... And then all detect a drop as things turn on so all switch off again ...

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,256 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    Unintended consequences. They need to program in a bit of randomness.

    The UK grid was used to the sudden surge in demand when the ad break started in Coronation Street and other such programmes. As soon as the break started, on with the kettle. I assume a similar effect occurred at the same time with the water mains as millions of toilets were flushed simultaneously.



  • Advertisement
  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,537 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    It's more that the inertia of heating means that it doesn't need to respond immediately and a device doesn't need smarts to see the mains frequency. YOu are however relying on the smart meter to pickup on the fact you dropped demand when mains slowed down.



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,574 ✭✭✭✭josip


    Lots of brain power being directed towards Hydrogen transport strategies.

    https://newatlas.com/energy/eat-si-hydrogen-generating-powder/



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭gjim


    Reading the article, you transport or store energy in the form of silicon and "recover" hydrogen by mixing it with water. In the best case scenario, in a non-transport situation where you can presumably access water externally, it means transporting 7kg of this powder for every 1kg of hydrogen you get out (the chemical reaction is given as Si + 2H2O -> SiO2 + 2H2 and Si has 28 times the molecular weight of hydrogen.) In a transport application, you'd need to also carry the water "fuel" meaning another 5kg of water. Compressed hydrogen has between 7 and 12 times better energy density.

    So it's not a straight win or advance for hydrogen tech - you are sacrificing energy density for safer/simpler storage.

    More importantly, they have no proposal to make the reaction practical if used continuously - it will need a mechanical system to remove the solid SiO2 by-product from the reaction chamber. Their "one-shot" demo in a lab bottle approach obviously cannot be used in practice or at scale.



  • Registered Users Posts: 13,574 ✭✭✭✭josip


    I suppose the big advantage of this kind of proposal is that the global transport infrastructure is already in place. Bulk carriers comprise 21% of the global merchant fleet. I think there is 1 compressed hydrogen ship in existence at the moment?

    It would also be very unusual I think that a destination didn't have a sufficient supply of (fresh?) water for the reaction.



  • Posts: 0 Gwen Damaged Pita


    Looking for someone to tell me I'm misunderstanding the following numbers

    According to a previous energy review document, Shannon LNG is to have 4 x 200,000m3 storage tanks, 800,000m3 in total, with a max final export capacity of 28.3 mscm/d. That includes exporting to a 500MW CHP plant

    Ireland currently consumes 5.1 billion m3 per year or just shy of 14 million m3 per day.

    Gas Networks Ireland state "The Gas Networks Ireland system peak day gas demand forecast for the forthcoming winter is 36.2 mscm/d in the case of 1-in-50 winter peak day, and 31.8 mscm/d in the case of an average winter peak day".

    Am I right in saying that in the event of Moffat flows stopping, (a) the LNG facility would only hold a few hours of gas at max export rate (without multiple deliveries per day topping up the tanks) and (b) at max rate it wouldn't be able to meet the network demand.

    I'm obviously going with a worst case scenario here as approx 30% of current demand is met by Corrib but thats dropping year on year anyway.

    One of the big arguments for building the thing is to cover us in the event Moffat stops flowing but from the looks of it Shannon LNG would not be the saviour its made out to be.

    Then again, its entirely possible I'm completely misunderstanding the numbers here which is why I'm asking for anyone more knowledgeable to clarify



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭gjim


    The LNG storage tanks store liquified NG which is about 600 times denser than (normal/gaseous form) natural gas. So these tanks can store the equivalent of just under half a billion m3 of gas. About a months supply if your figures from GNI are right.



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,913 ✭✭✭tom1ie


    Do you know how dense CNG (compressed natural gas) can be stored at?



  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,537 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Very roughly LNG is 500 kg/m3 and so is 500 times as dense as when it's a gas



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭gjim


    Hadn't thought about that tom1ie. A quick google says CNG is natural gas compressed to under 1% of the volume of the equivalent standard cubic meter units for natural gas (these volume units are for natural gas are at just under atmospheric pressure).



  • Posts: 0 Gwen Damaged Pita


    Thank you! Good to know

    Every day is a school day 😊



  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 9,913 ✭✭✭tom1ie


    Thanks. So If we had CNG tanks we could just be filling them up off the grid and using that as our emergency storage in the scenario that gas is hard to come by in the future.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,412 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    How soon is corrib expected to be more or less out of gas ? And to what extent could it become gas storage ? Even if just using the mains pressure to pump in summer gas and extend it's useful life - as happened with kinsale for a while ?

    The LNG proposal for guileen involved using the pipeline from the disused ballycotton / kinsale field to get gas to shore, but I don't think it involved using any storage ..

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,760 ✭✭✭Apogee




  • Registered Users Posts: 3,760 ✭✭✭Apogee


    19MW battery facility gone live in Aghada


    Inis Eagla opens for consulation

    The red boundary in Figure 1.1 is the Foreshore Licence Area and is the area under investigation for potential cable routes to shore.

    The grey boundary Figure 1.1 is the Turbine Investigation Area and is the area under investigation as the location for the wind farm itself.

    https://inisealgamarineenergypark.com/



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,264 ✭✭✭eeepaulo


    Are there any reasons why, as a country, we shouldn't be developing solar ourselves?



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭gjim


    Not sure what you mean by developing? The RESS 2 auction results should mean the deployment of about 1.5GW of solar on top of 700MW granted for RESS 1.

    If you mean building factories to produce panels in Ireland, I don't see any benefit to it at all. We have no inherent advantages, expertise or history in the sector. Let the likes of the German and Chinese spend tax-payer's money subsidising PV panel production - Ireland isn't going to win in that race - but we can buy the cheap panels they build and reap decades of relatively cheap electricity from their deployment.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,264 ✭✭✭eeepaulo


    I meant investing and owning the solar farms? Looking at the figures you provided they pay for themselves in no time.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭gjim


    Well yeah - like I said, there's huge amount of solar being built or planned to build at the moment. I'd guess ball-park of about 3 billion euro investment is going into the sector if the RESS 1 and 2 auction results are anything to go by. And, a lot of the investment is at the "community" level, not just large players.



  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,537 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight



    Norway refines a lot of the silicon used for panels as it's energy intensive and they have lots of hydro. Likewise Aluminium electrolysis happens in Iceland where they have cheap energy even though Aughinish Alumina has the largest refining site in Europe down in Limerick. Germany is trying to get back in the solar panel production game too. Here Intel use something like 7% of our electricity to make very expensive profitable silicon

    Soon we will have 2.2GW of interconnectors , lots more electric vehicles and datacentres, on top of several GW of existing daytime demand. So the grid could take a lot of solar before we'd need to worry about storing the excess. A fraction of Bord Na Mona's land would be enough to power the country if you had cheap enough storage.



  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 32,136 ✭✭✭✭is_that_so


    I know there is a ESB and Bord na Móna agreement to provide solar. What stage is that at now?



Advertisement