Energy infrastructure

https://www.clare.fm/featured-2/moneypoint-function-back-electricity-supplier-2029/

Moneypoint Power Station will function as a back up electricity supplier to the national grid until 2029.

This means that the station will not be active in the wholesale electricity market but can be called into action by Eirgrid in the event that a shortfall in generation capacity elsewhere would threaten overall consumer supply.

It will be converted from coal to oil until eventually (post-2029) changing over to hydrogen or something like that

gjim

Looks like a complete waste of time. Oil is a prohibitively expensive way to generate electricity - twice as expensive as coal and emits even more co2 than coal per kWh and is barely much cleaner in terms of toxic pollution. And as a big old-school thermal plant it’ll have the operational maneuverability of a supertanker - 4 hours or more to get to peak efficiency from a cold start. If you have to have fossil fuel backup, it should be combined cycle gas turbine which is flexible enough to compliment renewables and 3 times cleaner than coal. It seems like a desperation move to avoid facing the fact that this monster plant is simply obsolete - I was pretty sure its capital value had already been written off. I can’t even imagine the circumstances which would justify firing it up again in the future. It’s like keeping a steam locomotive around as “backup” for the LUAS.

bk

gjim, it sounds like it is to be a strategic reserve, rather then a backup in the way you describe it.

It helps answer the question, what would we do if the Russians blew up the gas pipelines to the UK?

That is why it wouldn’t use gas, as we don’t have much gas storage facilities. We do however have a strategic oil reserve and it is pretty easy to ship in more oil as needed. The fact it would take 4 hours to turn on (probably longer) in a scenario like this would be irrelevant, as would be the amount of greenhouse gases released (it would be an emergency).

I suspect it will basically sit there for the next ten years unused, but available in an extreme event.

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121095502#Comment_121095502

Wasn't much interest in the UK auction a couple of weeks ago either - the industry whining as usual about wanting to gouge more money out of the state and consumer

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121103002#Comment_121103002

Shows again the folly of betting the house on windmills and sunny days🙄

Dont Be at It

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121103002#Comment_121103002

A certain amount of its generation is already produced using oil as the fuel. It's not an ideal situation but the back up is capacity is needed due to lack of new build gas and a huge increase in demand, primarily due to data centres.

Current CCGTs are all operating profitably in the wholesale market so it wouldn't make any sense to use one as backup reserve. Not sure how you can't imagine the circumstances in which it'll be needed as backup - it's currently operating within the normal isem market structure due to current demand levels. Removing it could be a mechanism to keep prices down.

Apogee

ABP refuses permission for Shannon LNG as "it would be inappropriate to permit or proceed with the development of any LNG terminals in Ireland pending the review of energy supply."

https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0915/1405455-lng/

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121113003#Comment_121113003

ABP; the tail continues to wag the dog.

RetroEncabulator

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121113003#Comment_121113003

In the middle of a war that's drastically upended European energy supplies, what the hell is An Bord Pleanála doing making massive strategic decisions about Irish energy systems for? It's operating WAY outside its lane on this. It's supposed to be about the built environment planning, yet could end up taking a decision on something like this that puts Ireland in ridiculously tenuous situations around energy.

What exactly is ABP's expertise on energy economics or strategic infrastructure planning?

Why is it being left as the agency making these kinds of decisions?

Why don't we have a national strategic energy agency? The days of the ESB and Bord Gais as public utility monopolies making those kinds of decisions are behind us and their role hasn't really been replaced.

We've already seen some of the highest energy prices anywhere in the world here and it has a massive impact on people's quality of life and on the economy.

They're also not causing massive reductions in gas consumption here, they're just a major driving factor for already steep inflation. There are inadequate alternatives, so costs just rise.

Irish moves also would seem to fly in the face of European Union strategic energy policies: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv%3AOJ.L_.2022.173.01.0017.01.ENG&toc=OJ%3AL%3A2022%3A173%3ATOC

Not only that but our off shore wind was massively delayed due to kafkaesque planning systems.

bk

"What exactly is ABP's expertise on energy economics or strategic infrastructure planning?"

I mean that is exactly what ABP is saying here, they are saying this shouldn't go ahead until the governments current review that is ongoing, 'Review of the Security of Energy Supply of Ireland's Electricity and Natural Gas Systems’, is complete.

In other words the actual experts in the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications need to complete their review, publish it and then ABP can make decisions based on that expert review.

The rumours seem to be the government don't want to allow LNG facilities like this and instead might opt to rent a floating LNG terminal as an emergency standby and storage facility as that will be a cheaper option in the long term.

Previous reviews I believe found that allowing commercial LNG terminals will actually drive up residentail costs and would possibly become a stranded asset as we move away from fossil fuels.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121114047#Comment_121114047

I thought this review was complete?

Want there some report out that recognised the fact we desperately need gas storage for electricity generation and gas usage- or was that just an eirgrid and engineers Ireland report?

Apogee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121115508#Comment_121115508

There was the CEPA Technical Report which is meant to feed into the overall security of energy supply review:

https://www.gov.ie/en/consultation/dbe14-review-of-the-security-of-energy-supply-of-irelands-electricity-and-natural-gas-systems/

bk

And the above technical report shorted listed the option of the government leasing a floating LNG FSRU as a strategic reserve (only to be used in a shock scenario).

The same report did not short list the building of a commercial LNG FSRU, basically saying it was a bad idea for a couple of reasons.

So this ABP decision is very much inline with what the experts are saying and government policy.

BTW the floating LNG FSRU as a backup isn’t the only option short listed, about a dozen other options were also short listed.

gjim

Let's face, it any report commissioned by the government will be tainted by the army of institutional opponents to an LNG terminal. Most of the opposition is not on the basis of environmental concerns but has been orchestrated by the incumbent gas industry in Ireland. The business case for constructing the expensive old-school gas interconnectors to the UK was based on the ability to sell the gas with a decent profit margin - i.e. to exploit what is effectively a monopoly market position.

Allowing gas consumers in Ireland access a cheaper alternative - which would require zero state or semi-state capital investment - would undermine this monopoly and also expose what a dreadful strategic decision it was to commit exclusively to pipelines for NG imports. Effectively, an unofficial collusion of government, semi-states and civil servants will oppose any threat to this cosy arrangement which represents the worst sort of rent-seeking/protectionism masked by faux-environmental concern.

I'm fully signed up 100% supporter of renewables expansion and believe we'll get to 90% carbon free sooner than many think - but the more I learn about energy markets and technology, the more convinced I am that the last 10% will rely on NG. Paradoxically, we need security of supply and competitively priced NG to support the roll-out of renewables.

bk

@gjim “Old fashioned” piped gas is much cheaper than LNG. The entire process of liquifying the gas, shipping it across the world and then regasifying it makes it more expensive then piped gas.

Also LNG is worse for the environment, but I’m not talking about fracking, which is neither here nor there. Again the above process of liquifying the gas and regasification requires significant amounts of energy. This extra energy means LNG has significantly more green house gas emissions than piped gas.

The fact is LNG is more expensive and worse for the environment then piped gas.

antoinolachtnai

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121117865#Comment_121117865

This is just not an accurate description of the situstion. Any shipper can ship any gas they want across the interconnectors and across the UK transmission pipelines to Ireland.

gjim

@bk - it's not "much cheaper". Sometimes it's cheaper and sometimes it's more expensive - pipeline prices are set in long-term contracts so the spot price can go above or below a fixed pipeline price. Global LNG trade has been growing at twice the rate of piped NG for the last decade or two - this isn't because people love paying higher prices.

Yes shipping and regasifying isn't free but neither is building hugely expensive underwater pipelines - which depreciate and are not exactly cheap to maintain. They are also completely inflexible - with huge capital costs they are only economic running at full tilt - a bit like a nuclear power station. As we move away from fossil fuels, this is just a ball and chain and a deadweight asset - like what Moneypoint has become. We need the flexibility to LOWER our imports of NG in the future without taking a huge financial hit/writedown.

Remember we have ZERO natural gas storage in the country. The "Review of the Security of Energy Supply of Ireland’s Electricity and Natural Gas Systems Consultation" document linked above projects that in 2030 (not so long away), 90% of the NG we consume will come from Moffat in Scotland via underwater pipelines. With no gas storage in the country, a pipeline failure in the Irish sea or at the onshore terminals would be absolutely devastating - I mean we wouldn't be able to keep hospitals running, never mind boil kettles at home.

A country with ZERO storage facilities, knowing how reliant we are on NG for electricity, industry and domestic heating, deliberately choosing to have single point-of-failure for energy, is madness. All our European peers have multiple legacy NG fixed connections over land and sea, most have storage and ALL either have LNG terminals or are planning to have them. They Belgians, Dutch, Danish, etc. are not known for silly policies so I'm inclined to view Ireland - which is an outlier in this regard - is the one with the poor policy here.

Note that this Shannon proposal included nearly 1 million m3 of storage which would have provided enough to supply the entire country for a month in case of emergency. And it can be used to effectively store much more - by paying LNG carriers to queue up at sea. A large LNG carrier holds about a week's supply for the country.

This policy is nuts. I just can't see how it can be defended.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121118619#Comment_121118619

What happens if the Moffat lines go offline for a period of time?

RetroEncabulator

It strikes me as yet another Irish decision to go with the most precarious situation imaginable. We are relying on everything being fine and on the good will of neighbours.

Having no strategic gas storage reserve is simply nuts. There's no other way of describing it. We are an island that's highly dependent on gas and likely to be so for some time to come.

antoinolachtnai

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121119767#Comment_121119767

That is bringing a completely different issue. it has nothing to do with the price of gas or competitiveness of the gas market.

If the three interconnectors at Moffat somehow went offline at least one of them would get fixed pretty quickly.

There is linepack gas which would last a few days while this was happening.

Oil reserves stand ready to be used to fuel the electricity generation fleet if needed.

What sort of scenario are you thinking of for these lines to go offline?

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121121230#Comment_121121230

it’s a scenario that surely must be considered due to the consequences that would occur if it did happen.

How do ya know the existing gas in the pipe would last a few days with our winter demand? Wouldn’t pressure in the pipe drop as supply went off line, thus the supply of gas slowing and stopping as it’s not being pushed from the Moffat side?

Oil reserves are on whiddy island and not connected to Irelands main oil network, so a fleet of tankers would have to be organised to feed the generators that can burn oil distillate as well as NG.

How do you know one of the Moffat lines would be “fixed pretty quickly”?

Have you ever heard of the saying prepare for the worst but hope for the best?

antoinolachtnai

Prepare for the worst? How far do we go with this preparing for eventuality? Should be also prepare for scenarios where the various onshore transmission lines go offline and cannot be repaired? What would we do if ten transmission towers collapsed all at once? Should we have contingencies for all of that?

Overbuilding contingency and capacity like that will make energy a lot more expensive.

How could the situation you describe happen, really?

Is it really more likely than a global supply squeeze?

Anyway, it is completely daft to build a commercial LNG plant to counter the possibility of long term physical failure of infrastructure.

Re other questions. Generators have oil on-site. Charter a ship to transport the oil. Organize some tankers as you advise. Do you really think this hasn’t been planned for already? The gas is held under greater than minimum pressure (‘packed’) so that there is a reserve. That is why it is called linepack. Grid companies have contingency plans to deal with faults. They fix them fast, that is their business.

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121118619#Comment_121118619

This is simply not true or disingeneous. No LNG carrier can turn up in the UK and direct that their "cargo" be shipped to Ireland.

The UK (unlike Ireland) has many suppliers and at the moment has a reasonably competitive wholesale NG market where prices aren't too far off European prices. The NG that comes out the Irish end of the interconnectors will come from a mix of sources, some of which may be LNG carriers but that's neither here nor there as the price is set by the (UK) national wholesale gas price.

No NG consumer in Ireland can decide they want to buy their NG from a LNG carrier and negotiate a price with an alternative supplier. And once Corrib winds down, then every single consumer in Ireland will be force to pay the UK national wholesale price PLUS transport costs via Moffat (plus distribution costs within Ireland).

But maybe all those other similarly-sized northern European countries are stupid to have built gas storage, multiple pipelines/interconnectors to different neighbours and LNG terminals. And Ireland is the clever one - putting all its eggs into a single basket with a single point of failure for the primary energy source which provides 40% of every joule of energy consumed in the country - and forcing every single consumer to pay the Moffat entry/exit tax. I'm inclined to believe that Ireland's strategy is daft.

gjim

"Overbuilding contingency and capacity like that will make energy a lot more expensive."

This is illogical. The Shannon LNG terminal is to be funded and constructed by private company - if they can offer NG at prices cheaper than that which comes through Moffat, then it will make energy cheaper for Irish consumers. If they cannot, then consumers will continue to buy their gas from the UK and the investors in the Shannon LNG facility will lose their shirts. In neither case does the Irish government or state lose money or are consumers forced to pay higher prices.

It's like saying have multiple different supermarket bands makes food more expensive. You may not like it, perhaps for political/ideological reasons, but it's simple empirical fact observed universally across geography and history that having multiple suppliers puts downwards pressures on prices and - in the other way supply monopolies have the opposite effect.

tom1ie

Well your argument makes no sense as the electricity grid is a grid, ie interconnected.

If one transmission line fails we have normally open points that are closed which diverts power to the area that was being fed by the failed transmission line.

That’s how a grid works.

In the case of the Moffat lines, we are tail fed, ie if we have failure (for whatever reason that you see as silly) we lose our NG supply.

Can you link to how long NG supplies will operate as normal due to being under pressure in the event of pressure failure?

You asked do I really think a contingency hasn’t been planned for already- answer= I’d hope so- but I don’t know.

Would we be able to charter oil tankers at the drop of a hat?

How long would the oil supplies at the generators (that normally use NG) last?

All questions that I hope there are acceptable answers to.

gjim

Oil tankers - regardless of quantity - wouldn’t help. The vast majority of our fossil fuel electricity generation capacity is NG and even if Moneypoint were to be fully converted to oil burning, this could only provide a fraction of the capacity of the NG capacity we would lose. NG is heavily used domestically for heating and cooking and industrially - oil would be no good here either.

bk

“In the case of the Moffat lines, we are tail fed, ie if we have failure (for whatever reason that you see as silly) we lose our NG supply.”

No we wouldn’t, we still have Corrib for the time being.

The Moffat pipes are now fully separated, so if one goes down, it doesn’t impact the other.

It is correct to say that we have a few days worth of gas in the pipelines.

“Would we be able to charter oil tankers at the drop of a hat?”

Yes, that is fundamentally how the oil industry works. Of course you pay a premium, but tankers can be redirected if there is a sudden need. Hell there is even many tankers at sea, with no buyer, just waiting for a buyer or the right price.

Also given how relatively small we are and the fact that we a EU member, in an emergency situation the other EU countries would have no problem with some of their deliveries being redirected.

Also again, Ireland has strategic oil reserve mostly kept down in Cork.

BTW no one is saying we shouldn’t do anything to improve our backup, but that certainly doesn’t have to be commercial LNG. Reopen Kinsale or use Corrib for gas storage, government owned LNG backup terminal, etc. are all options.

bk

“Remember we have ZERO natural gas storage in the country.”

This can change, the review looks at multiple options for gas (and later hydrogen) storage. Reopen Kinsale, use Corrib as a strategic reserve reserve and storage, etc.

Markcheese

Didnt the shannon scheme have planning before but they let it lapse ,

We're not really a big enough market for lng and piped gas , but i do think a lack of any gas storage is a mistake , I've no idea where they'd actually put it .

RetroEncabulator

The state should have a strategic national energy agency, which could also own backup storage itself.

The days of the vertically integrated ESB and state owned BGE fulfilling that role are gone and we need something that's strategic and acting in the national interest, not just chasing commercial profit, which even the ESB is compelled to do due to the way its positioned in the market.

I don't think our energy policies are clear, and there are too many agencies and entities involved in planning and regulating.