Energy infrastructure

Apogee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121606445#Comment_121606445

Your first Q is answered in the conditions linked above - it's to be fed into the GNI network

From my reading of the planning docs, the restriction on using hydrogen directly seems to stem from the lack of precedence and the unknown degree of risk involved.

At the same time, GNI seem to be in favour of using methane/hydrogen blends going forward e.g.

https://www.gasnetworks.ie/docs/renewable/22304-GNI-HyEnd-Report_v5.pdf

gjim

Hydrogen is a dirty and inefficient fuel which has been promoted since the late 19th century but has, despite a century of investment and enthusiastic promises never delivered anything practical.

Combusting it in air is highly polluting - and I trust studies that show "it's not so bad" as much I trust medical reports from cigarette companies. Injecting hydrogen into the gas network where it will be burned indoors on gas hobs and in central heating boilers is a truly dreadful idea as NOx is being implicated in more and more health issues and is a massive lawsuit waiting to happen.

It's a powerful greenhouse gas when leaked - about 12 times CO2 over 100 years - and it's the "leakiest" gas in physics. So much for helping avoid global warming.

There isn't a single operating hydrogen gas turbine in the world as of yet - although the Germans are about to try one.

But what will doom it is cost/inefficiency - the promised hydrogen gas turbine (if a practical one is ever demonstrated), is slated to be at best 40% efficient. With electrolysis offering about 60% efficiency means round-trip efficiency of using hydrogen to store energy is about 25%. And that's ignoring any leakage and the cost and technical challenge of compressing and storing it. This is just never going to stack up against over-provisioning wind and solar.

So it's highly inefficient as an energy store, poisonous when combusted, a potent greenhouse gas, extremely dangerous if leaked (search for hydrogen fires on you tube) and still years away from any sort of practical scale out. What am I missing here? Why are we even considering doing this or wasting money on it?

Use electrolysis to displace grey hydrogen but that's it.

cnocbui

"What am I missing here? Why are we even considering doing this or wasting money on it?"

Because it's still going to be cheaper than a trillion Tesla powerwalls and the ESB see it as the only viable option for storing the amount of energy that needs to be in order to reach net zero. Over provisioning wind is like saying my kite just crashed, I'll just try flying ten of them in the hope one makes it.

There is another thread for the sensible alternative.

KrisW1001

Hydrogen can be used as an energy store at a cost that's far below any other options.

Electrolysis of water using surplus electricity, capture the oxygen and hydrogen, then recombust those pure gases to provide additional power when needed with near zero pollutants. It's not particularly efficient as a round trip, with around 50% efficiency (electrolysis is 75% efficient, H2 turbines are about 65%)*, but it could be scaled cheaply and doesn't need exotic materials, unlike the alternatives.

* For comparison, pumped-storage hydro is about 60-80% efficient, but needs helpful geography and enormous engineering. Lithium ferrophosphate batteries would be 85% efficient, but impossible to realise at this scale.

gjim

"Because it's still going to be cheaper than a trillion Tesla powerwalls and the ESB see it as the only viable option for storing the amount of energy tat needs to be in order to reach net zero."

Yeah because the only alternative to hydrogen is a "trillion Tesla powerwalls" 🙄

But go on then, given how confident you seem; how much will it cost, do you reckon? Per MW generation and per kWh storage? This will be impressive, particularly since there isn't a single instance of a grid-scale electricity storage facility based on hydrogen anywhere in the world. In fact, you will struggle to be able to give a realistic price just for hydrogen storage - there are only 9 large hydrogen storage sites in the world - 3 built in the 1970s with a combined capacity LESS than the ANNUAL production of batteries.

For reference, battery storage is down to under $300 per kWh - which in a normal grid scale configuration is equivalent to $1200 per KW. Last year 1.57 TWh of batteries rolled out of factories. Battery production is growing 30% annually. But yeah, battery storage is "not viable" 🙄

And of course, there are plenty of alternatives besides batteries, including interconnection, over-provision of renewables, hydro and of course natural gas peaker plants.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121610298#Comment_121610298

I actually agree with you, that's why there is that aternative thread. But you don't like that option either.

I have always argued that to truly compare a 46% capacity factor energy source with one that's 96%, cost wise, you need to include the 2.5 times over generation capacity and then add the energy storage system costs.

Hydrogen isn't going to work, that's why certified genius, Eamon Ryan, is now on an interconnector crusade, which not only don't generate a single watt but will cost more than building the things that can't be mentioned. Not to mention the more turbines the continent erect, the less likely they will have the capacity to share to keep the EV's charged up here when our turbines are stationary, just like theirs.

The only thing you like and will countenance are turbines and solar. If they could do the job I'd be all over them too - money for nothing, chicks for free - what's not to like, they are absolutely wonderful, elegant and pristine sources of energy - when they are working, which just isn't nearly close to enough of the time and what is actually needed.

This is the reality, as of a minute ago:

The better battery/energy storage nut han't been cracked in at least 100 years of the world's brightest chemists working on it... but any minute now, just like fusion.

cnocbui

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is a photo I just took of Ireland's net zero energy infrastructure and policy in action, or should that be inaction?

You can clearly make out the single large turbine that is furiously generating the energy I need to run my heating and run this laptop. In the very far distance on that row of lowish hills, you can see the line of it's bretheren helping it with it's noble task.

Busman Paddy Lasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121610815#Comment_121610815

When you mention the other thread let's be clear it's the nuclear thread. That same thread that that went quiet were when an expert estimates the UK will spend £10 Billion per reactor, not per plant, on decommissioning.

That same thread that went eerily silent when even a regular Joe like me posted a brief list of obstacles to building a nuclear plant on this island with a neutral non militarized country being 26 of 32 of it's counties.

which not only don't generate a single watt but will cost more than building the things that can't be mentioned.

Large generators including nuclear plants need connectors to the grid. You panic and sh1t the bed when an interconnector crosses a body of water yet idolise when interconnectors are utilised across land on continental Europe, allowing a nation state to reach 80% nuclear generation. Impossible without said interconnection.

cnocbui

The Celtic interconnector was to originally cost €1 billion for 700 Mw of capacity.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2022/11/13/celtic-interconnector-cost-jumps-over-70/

By Nov 2022 it had become €1.6 Billion. Given it's not going to be completed until 2026/7, it will be a miracle if it comes in under €2 billion, given it's Siemens who are doing it and they already need a €15 billion bailout from the German government over wonky turbines liabilities, not to mention it will have taken over a decade. What's really great about it is it's going to make consumer electricity prices cheaper. What with the considerable reductions we have already seen in consumer electricity prices as more and more renewables have come on stream, just as was promissed, more interconnecors should see prices fall to a mere pittance. Greenomics, FTW.

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121610192#Comment_121610192

At what cost? Where is this being done? If it were cheap, don't you think someone would have done it by now? Long term storage of pure oxygen is not even technically feasible at the volumes required to provide long term storage and now you've made an expensive (potential) idea even more expensive.

And we've been promised this many times over the last century - "clean cheap long term energy storage". This is a marketing term not a description of the actual reality.

The term "hydrogen economy" is over 50 years old - coined by John Brockris in the early 1970s. The International Association for Hydrogen Energy was founded in 1974 - consisting mostly of oil companies btw. This was during a period of intense interest in hydrogen and nuclear due to the oil crisis. Money poured into both hydrogen energy and nuclear. Nuclear, at least, delivered and helped to contribute to lowering dependence on fossil fuels. Nothing practical came from the efforts into hydrogen despite it not being subject to any political friction unlike nuclear.

In the 1980s, a second cycle of hydrogen hype started with improvements to fuel cell technology. By 1990s this peaked with all and sundry predicting hydrogen would replace fossil fuels for all transport in a few years. But it turned out to be another dud.

We're currently in the another hydrogen hype cycle, piggy-backing on the incredible success of wind and solar. And based on nothing new at all - still the same old fossil fuel companies receiving government money to do "pilots".

And, like I said, it's an incredibly potent greenhouse gas - 12 or 13 times worse than CO2 in terms of GWP100 - so why are we looking into using it to help with global warming? It's explosive, dangerous, difficult to handle, poisonous when combusted in air, incredibly expensive and has yet to be proven in a large scale demonstration.

It's not like there has been some technological or conceptual break-through - Jack Haldane - in 1923 described a system of windmills powering electrolysis to generate hydrogen for storage which would later be burned to produce electricity.

After more than a century of failures, duds and flops - the only reasonable response to promises of hydrogen playing a role for energy is "I'll believe it when I see it".

Apogee

Eirgrid have released annual their Generation Capacity Statement. Lots of data, including breakdown of expected future demand:

https://cms.eirgrid.ie/sites/default/files/publications/19035-EirGrid-Generation-Capacity-Statement-Combined-2023-V5-Jan-2024.pdf

Some additional commentary in Irish Times highlighting gap between promised and actual generation capacity.

"Since the previous such statement, published in the autumn of 2022, developers have axed plans to build generators that would have provided 455 megawatts (MW) of electricity, the equivalent of a large gas-fired power plant. This is in addition to the 630MW which was terminated before the company published the 2022 statement. “This means that most new predictable capacity that was expected to come online over the coming years has now withdrawn,” says the report.

Many of the axed generators would have run on natural gas, which provides half of the country’s electricity and on which the system relies when weather prevents wind and solar plants from generating power.

Eirgrid’s report notes that since 2018 just 30MW of new natural gas-fuelled power generators have been added to the Irish electricity network."

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/01/13/squeezed-electricity-supplies-may-force-state-to-fall-back-on-older-fossil-burning-power-plants-eirgrid-report/

cnocbui

The ESB estimate for primary energy needs by 2050 to achieve net zero is 120 TWh. Out of the most recent round of offshore wind farm bids, not one has sought planning permission yet. Good luck with 2050.

Apogee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120445127#Comment_120445127

In line with Cork Energy Cluster plan outlined above, ESB are applying to CorkCoCo for a pilot 1MW electrolyser, hydrogen storage capacity and 2x 250kW fuel cells at Aghada:

The proposed development consists of the construction of a hydrogen production facility comprising a hydrogen compound and contractor’s compound with all associated site access and ancillary site development works. The proposed development will demonstrate the full chain hydrogen production via electrolysis, storage, usage on site via fuel cell and transport offsite to other sector hydrogen users. The proposed development is to be used for hydrogen production for an operational period of up to five years. The proposed development comprises : 1) 1 megawatt (MW) electrolyser including a water purification unit (40-foot (ft) container) (2.5m x 12.2m x 5.4m) with a stack height of 7.7m above ground level, 2) A transformer and control unit container (2.8m x 7.5m x 3.3m) housing a 6.6 kilovolt (kV) to 400kV transformer, 3) A storage container (2.8m x 6.4m x 3.3m), 4) A welfare unit (2.8m x 7.5m x 3.3m), 5) A compressor (20ft container) (2.7m x 6.4m x 4.3m), 6) 5 x 2.5kg low pressure (30 bar) hydrogen storage MCP units (manifolded cylinder pallets) (1m x 1m x 2.1m), 7) 3 x 19kg high pressure (300 bar) hydrogen storage MCP units (manifolded cylinder pallets) (1m x 1m x 2.1m), 8) 2 x 61kg low pressure (30 bar) nitrogen storage MCP units (manifolded cylinder pallets) (1m x 1m x 2.1m), 9) 2 x 31kg high pressure (300 bar) nitrogen storage MCP units (manifolded cylinder pallets) (1m x 1m x 2.1m), 10) 4 x 400kg (high pressure) mobile refuelling hydrogen storage vehicles, 11) 2 x 250 kilowatt (kW) hydrogen power units (2.7m x 7.3m x 5.4m), 12) Heavy goods vehicles (HGV) loading bays with 4m high walls, 13) A palisade fence enclosing the hydrogen compound (2.6m height).

http://planning.corkcoco.ie/ePlan/AppFileRefDetails/244026/0

Huntstown 50MW 'emergency generator' to be operational in a few weeks. Article notes that "other emergency generators in counties Offaly and Kerry will follow Huntstown on to the grid this year."

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2024/01/16/huntstown-emergency-power-plant-to-be-ready-within-weeks/

Paddico

Mayos' floating wind turbine project. Anyone know what happened this

Paddico

Sorry, link attached

https://www.midwestradio.ie/index.php/news/30044-31-million-project-approved-for-ambitious-four-year-floating-offshore-wind-project-in-belmullet

Mod edit: This article is 5 years old.

Markcheese

https://youtu.be/aUsjzgNx_8Y?si=p4_2g7sfpZFdI5FO

Nothing to do with irish energy per-,say

But it shoes which way the wind is blowing 🤔😂 ( i couldnt help myself ,sorry )

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121660237#Comment_121660237

It's not the biggest wind farm in the hemisphere and the clown with the man-bun repeatedly claims it's capacity will equal it's output. He even get's the 3.5 GW output wrong, when he excitedly talks of it's 3 GW being exported to Cali when their 10 GW of solar drops off the grid at night and they fire up the fossil fuel sources. No such thing as capacity factor in greenie man-bun land, it seems.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121659753#Comment_121659753

Floating OSW is probably a dead concept now after the latest maintenance debacle. It was already the world's most expensive form of commercial energy generation and it just got a lot, lot more expensive. Mind you, the country that takes 29 years to get around to building a national children's hospital at twice the cost of an overseas equivalent, could be prepared to foist any level of stupid cost on the shoulders of Irish energy consumers, that floating LNG terminal being such an egregious and typical example from minister Pay-More Ryan.

CatInABox

Powering Up Dublin routes and locations have been announced.

https://twitter.com/thejournal_ie/status/1752215062838726704

Apogee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121190529#Comment_121190529

Government extends Inishkea exploration licence until Jan 2026

https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/climate-crisis/2024/02/01/green-party-accused-of-facilitating-fossil-fuel-expansion-as-exploration-licence-off-west-coast-is-extended/

Movement on Celtic Interconnector at both ends - Delivery of cable to Cork:

https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/arid-41320204.html

And also progress in France:

https://twitter.com/RTE_ouest/status/1751990270814535905

Some preliminary number-crunching by Irish Energy Bot highlighting import/export potential

https://twitter.com/IrishEnergyBot/status/1753039188658642949

Sam Russell

I have been wondering for some time why we are importing energy via the interconnectors.

Well, I have concluded that either it is cheaper or that it is to massage our CO2 performance. The first reason is unlikely unless the UK are overproducing and want to dump energy.

Capt'n Midnight

Earlier today 91% of demand was met by wind. 366MW from all the other sources combined. Replacement reserve of 450MW could provide that. (ROI 325MW + 125MW NI)

At present our grid can only handle 75% renewables so to accommodate 3,790MW of wind you need 1,263MW of synchronous generation like thermal plant or hydro. We were exporting 72% of that. Turlough Hill in pumping mode could adsorb some of that synchronous generation, or it could be used to provide it when the turbines spin the other way. In the future we should be able to handle up to 95% non-sync on the grid.

And we also need high inertia generators (or big flywheels) near the cities for local stability. eg 2 large generators on-load at all times in the Dublin area, 3 if demand exceeds 4.7GW (ie. right now) The generators that used be needed on line all the time to keep the 400KV network up aren't needed when wind is above 1GW so the rules are evolving.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121718997#Comment_121718997

https://gridwatch.co.uk/ The UK is getting 51% from wind (Cyan)

Sam Russell

Well, this has been going on for months, not just windy days. Also it is windy here as well.

Apogee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121718997#Comment_121718997

Ireland imported significantly more electricity via the interconnectors in 2023 than in 2022. Ireland was a net exporter in 2022 and a net importer in 2023. According to the SEAI, the main driving force behind the higher imports is the differences in carbon prices in 2023.

Generators in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland operate within the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS), while the UK runs a separate system for the GB market. Carbon prices in the UK have been much lower than EU levels since March 2023, and this gap makes it more economical to import electricity from the GB market, essentially replacing domestic fossil fuel generation in Ireland with fossil fuel generation in GB.

https://www.greencollective.io/post/2024-01-08-2023-review

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121721397#Comment_121721397

So I was right - it was CO2 based.

josip

I thought with the Moneypoint synchronous condenser operational, we could now go beyond 75%, potentially 90%?

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121721637#Comment_121721637

Not only are Eirgrid importing energy, the coal output has halved from 5% to 2.5%, with gas reduced also. So reducing CO2 footprint.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121721637#Comment_121721637

Not sure what the limits on non-sync generation in the UK are. The highest share of wind in the overall generation mix was on 19 November 2023 between 4:30am and 5am, at 69%. But what were the interconnectors doing at that time ?

Day Average was

dubhthach

as a note on the Interconnector to France, it will also include a high capacity Fibre Optic cable system that will provide first dedicated link to continent (Havfue-2 has link to Denmark, but it's branch off wider Denmark to US cable system), this has important implications for bypass UK when it comes to connectivity to rest of the UK.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121771562#Comment_121771562

For what it's worth Eir have French owners.