Energy infrastructure

gjim

Electricity can be transported literally at the speed of light, can be converted directly and efficiently into any other sort of energy without creating waste, can be generated cleanly and cheaply and is directly accessible to 87% of the the planet.

Bring on this "dystopia" where 95% of humankind's energy needs are met by renewable locally-generated electricity instead of a planet being cooked by a huge filthy heavy industry that props up some of the most despotic and corrupt autocrats.

Sam Russell

Mod: Can we get back to discussing Infrastructure: Energy Infrastructure. - as per the thread title.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117997026#Comment_117997026

In Ireland - unobstructed direct sunlight happens for only 15% of the hours in a year. This is why you hear so much noise from prospective solar power provider grifters urging the government to give them guaranteed subsidies so they can build these stupid things and then go live in the Caymen Islands and enjoy their early retirement while the tax payer keeps their pockets and glasses full.

Interesting article recently noting that the majority of UK wind farms are owned by interests headquartered in the Caymen Islands and other tax havens. Mammy, mammy, why is our power bill so high?

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118001316#Comment_118001316

A bit more tragic was the arsewholes causing tons of live crayfish to slowly die on the docks. I'm an Australian, and it isn't my perception that Australia has lots of wind. Certainly not compared to Ireland. A lot of the wind it does have is generated by the continental mass and is adiabatic, so is a lot more intermittent than here.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118003455#Comment_118003455

Mammy, mammy, why is our power bill so high?

Gas prices

The hits will keep on coming for fossil fuels

http://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2021/1010/1252790-budget-2021-environment/

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118004224#Comment_118004224

And gas prices are high because renewables are not living up to the promise and they are needing to use vast quantities of it to meet the shortfall all across Europe.

Remember, 100% renewables by 2050....

The Germans shut down their nuclear reactors because a single person died as a result of Fukashima and are trying to shut down on coal, but they can't use wind to replace those as it's not blowing enough and solar at these lattitudes and climate are a sick joke, leaving gas.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118004739#Comment_118004739

As has been explained multiple times in this thread, the gas price spike is not as simple as that.

The lower output of renewables is a factor, certainly, but there are several other factors at play too.

Basically, it's no one issue, it's several issues

Markcheese

I'd agree that Germany shutting it's nuclear industry so quickly was a bit surprising - especially when most of the cost ( and carbon in the concrete) had already been spent ,

but current gas prices are likely to turn out to be a blip- and to blame current high gas prices on the renewable infrastructure is a bit weird ...

There is a very significant cost to co2 reduction ... But the alternative isn't to burn more coal and gas -

And it seems it's going to be too expensive at the moment to go nuclear - as well as being at least 15 years of develoment for a first station even if the contract was signed in the morning ... feic it even natural gas power stations take 4 or 5 years to plan , build and commission.. and that's using pretty much off the shelf engineering..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118003455#Comment_118003455

You keep saying that. Direct Sunlight isn’t available anywhere for 50% of the year even in the sunniest place on Earth. In fact let me look that up for you …. Yuma, Arizona has 4,015 hours so a mere 45% of the hours in the year are sunlight. Poor old Madrid has only 2,769 hours of direct sunlight, so the poor blighters have only 31% of the year with direct sunlight. it’s surprising anybody is building solar panels

This is because of night time. 🥸

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118005431#Comment_118005431

Yeah, nobody gives a fiddlers about how sunny it is Ireland. The only thing that matters is price - cost per kWh. In the 2020 RESS auctions, the solar PV bids averaged about 70 euro/mWh - actually (slightly) less than the average price for on-shore wind.

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118004471#Comment_118004471

What's your point? That we should be building a gas pipe instead? That'd be far more popular 🙄

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118006302#Comment_118006302

Firstly, the grid is already built here, so not sure what you are talking about there. It is always undergoing expansion and development and will always be doing that.

Planning permission has been already been granted for the north south interconnector. Its been delayed by appeals which is normal for virtually anything in this country at this stage.

Whether those appeals fail or succeed is immaterial, the interconnector will be getting built, just might take a bit longer and perhaps take a different route if required but it will be built.

It won't be the last one either, as Europe expands connectivity to ensure stability of energy networks. You seem to be arguing against this, why I don't know

Are you against interconnectors or something? To your point, to get energy from a solar source while its night here would involve an interconnector to the US and/or Asia. Is there something, somewhere, that makes you believe this is what is being planned and this is what you have a problem with because there are no plans (that I'm aware of) to do anything like that?

Good to see movement on this finally

https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/economy/arid-40718496.html

Germany looking to buy Irish hydrogen

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/german-mission-runs-rule-over-foynes-for-green-energy-hub-1.4696609

Atlantic Dawn

Eirgrid coming out brutal in all this. Whoy do they have corporate boxes in Croke Park and whoy do they advertise on RTE? It's not like I can decide to run my power across Zaire Power Limited should I wish, the entire Irish residential market is only allowed run off Eirgrid. Will any journalist cover this and ask whoy the levy on every single residential bill pays in to this?

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007347#Comment_118007347

Only a matter of time now before the Tu-95s are above Foynes.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007357#Comment_118007357

I do not understand why they would have corporate boxes - there is no need for them, and who gets to use them?

However, advertising while you are a monopoly does have a purpose.

The HSE gets woeful press because someone's granny gets bad service, or a kid gets poor service over some matter. It is always a someone, and not systemic. Now whether the HSE is fully responsible or not, they still get bad press. However, since the Covid, they are not getting such bad press, because they are doing quite well in the reaction to Covid - particularly with the vaccination and testing.

Now Eirgrid are facing network supply shortages that are getting tight, so a bit of feel good advertising might get them more room to ask for the public to take measures to mitigate supply problems. If the public feel good about Eirgrid, they might well do as asked. It works for water shortages.

roadmaster

As solar gets better in the future i wonder could we see europe doing a deal with north african countrys to build giant solar farms in there deserts with the power generatered supplying europe via an interconector through southern spain?

Bsharp

Spain and Morocco already have two interconnectors with a third on the way.

I wouldn't want to see Europe build or own them per se, rather North African countries themselves and they can use the energy/revenue as they see fit. The former tends to lead to more conflict.

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118012305#Comment_118012305

It's possible, but I would hope that countries have learned from Middle East oil and Russian gas that you have to be (largely) energy independent, even if domestic energy generation is less efficient and more costly. It will lead to greater world stability.

marno21

Eirgrid have tendered for 200MW of emergency generation required from Q3 2022 and issued a PIN for tender for 100MW of additional emergency generation from Q3 2023.

https://irl.eu-supply.com/ctm/Supplier/PublicPurchase/197182/1/0

https://irl.eu-supply.com/ctm/Supplier/PublicPurchase/199567/0/0?returnUrl=ctm/Supplier/publictenders&b=ETENDERS_SIMPLE

Capt'n Midnight

Malta has a 200MW import/export interconnector with Sicily.

And there was a feasibility study awarded for a 600MW Sicily - Tunisia interconnector. Joint venture between both countries grids.

The EuroAsia Interconnector will link Greece, Cyprus and Israel (Turkey is the common rival). First stage will be 1GW then 2GW

https://euroasia-interconnector.com/at-glance/

wassie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007347#Comment_118007347

That project is minuscule compared to what the Aussies are planning - funded by Fortescue Future Industries (FFI), an offshoot of Australia's 3rd biggest mining company.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-11/qld-hydrogen-capacity-explainer-hydrogen-green-twiggy/100528046

And in the Reuters report:

FFI said the first stage of the planned hub will be electrolyser factory in Gladstone, 480 km (300 miles) north of Brisbane, producing electrolysers with a capacity of 2 gigawatts a year, which it said was more than double current production globally.

The world's biggest electrolyser plant currently is run by ITM Power in Sheffield, England, with annual capacity of more 1 GW.

FFI said construction is planned to start in February 2022, with the first electrolysers, which convert water into hydrogen and oxygen, due in early 2023. Its initial investment would be $83 million, with investment of up to $650 million, subject to demand.

...Overall, FFI said it plans to produce 15 million tonnes of green hydrogen annually by 2030, rising to 50 million tonnes in the following decade for domestic and export markets.

thejuggler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007357#Comment_118007357

The ESB used to advertise constantly on Irish tv in the 80s and 90s when there was no competition for their customers. It made no sense then either.

Markcheese

Does anyone know what the round trip efficiency is for electrolizing water to hydrogen , compression and then back to electricity ? And are there many new wonder techs waiting in the wings ?

Atlantic Dawn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007857#Comment_118007857

Found this, still unclear why they have a corporate box at Croke Park, a sort of a PFO to a genuine question they were given...

"EirGrid sponsors the Under 21 Football Championship and is currently supporting the International Rules series. We are not in a position to divulge the names of attendees at the corporate suite on the two occasions referenced (U2 and Coldplay concert), but can confirm that they were key company stakeholders.

"I believe there were business contacts in attendance at both concerts."

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/exclusive-state-owned-company-spent-25k-on-croke-park-concert-tickets-and-entertainment-36301614.html

specialbyte

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118016780#Comment_118016780

There's a huge number of variables when talking about the efficiency of hydrogen electrolysis. So you really need to know the analysis method used by a vendor to be able to compare efficiency numbers across products/processes.

These are all super rough numbers but should give you an idea of the order of magnitude we're talking about.

If you want to know broadly the efficiency is the range of ~70-80%. Though the theoretical maximum is in the 90% range. When you convert the hydrogen back into electricity (plus heat and water) using a hydrogen fuel cell the efficiency there is about ~40-60%. You can be more efficient if you re-cycle the heat from the hydrogen fuel cell. There's a growing move towards hydrogen powered gas turbines, think natural gas turbines but with hydrogen. The technology is still early days but likely to be in the range of 40-60%.

Multiply those together you're looking at a combined efficiency of roughly 30-40%.

Converting energy from one state to another (i.e. electrons to a gas and back to electrons) is always going to result in significant energy loses. Lithium-ion batteries have a charge and discharge efficiency of 80-90%, but can only store small amounts of energy for hours, so it's not comparable to hydrogen. Pumped hydro storage is probably the most similar technology to hydrogen, as it is dispatch-able long-duration energy storage. Pumped hydro storage is about 70-80% efficient for comparison.

Lithium-ion is going to see huge rise over the next decade as it fills of the role of peaker plants and shifting supply by 4-8 hours to cover evening energy demand spikes.

Hydrogen is unlikely to see much wide-scale deployment this decade. Using electricity to produce hydrogen won't make sense because low round-trip efficiencies. Until we have significantly more marginal cost intermittent renewables on the grid the economics won't make sense. In the future the economics will change. There will be times when electricity is super cheap (the wind is blowing and the sun is shining) and times when electricity is more expensive (e.g. windless nights). At the moment, we don't have enough renewables installed on the grid for there to be enough hours in the day of potentially super cheap electricity for hydrogen to make sense. This will likely change around 2035.

I'd love to see pumped hydro storage get more attention. It is a proven technology in the energy storage space. It is widely deployable and commercially successful. It has challenges with geography and high capital costs but I think it deserves more attention in Ireland, and more widely across Europe.

gjim

"Until we have significantly more marginal cost intermittent renewables on the grid the economics won't make sense. In the future the economics will change."

The rest of your analysis is spot on. But the problem with the "ignore the inefficiency because intermittent generation sources will provide cheap power" case is that in practice it would destroy the capex case for an electrolysis plant as it would mean leaving your very expensive electrolysis plant idle for most of the day - meaning you'd have to wait 2 or 3 times longer to recover the capital cost.

And when actually operating (and electrolysis takes time to ramp up and down) you're facing the inherent inefficiencies of electrolysis. I just don't see this happening at scale in the medium term. And even if it could be done at scale, large scale use of li-ion for daily demand shifting - which is coming - is going to exploit daily price arbitrage far more efficiently and cheaply - reducing the availability of "cheap" power.

If governments are going to support de-carbonization, I'd rather they spent their money on infrastructure - i.e. transmission lines and interconnectors - than into hydrogen research and prototype building.

dubhthach

The main market for 'Green-Hydrogen' in the near term is probably gonna be in producing 'Green-Ammonia' to help decarbonise the Fertilizer industry. It's also a denser energy carrier than Hydrogen so there's talk of it been used to decarbonise shipping (Container shipping in particular).

It does have the issue of only having half the energy density of existing Ship fuel (Fuel oil) so it's usage initially will probably geared around the biggest/dirtiest vessels:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/why-the-shipping-industry-is-betting-big-on-ammonia

Apogee

Irish Times

The Bord Gáis Energy-owned gas-fired plant at Whitegate, Co Cork, and one of Energia’s two facilities in Huntstown, Co Dublin, have both been out of action since the beginning of the year.

However, both companies have said the plants will return to production in coming weeks, Huntstown on the 23rd of this month and Whitegate on November 4th. Their restart will help ease some of the electricity system’s supply pressures.

Neither Bord Gáis Energy nor Energia have given reasons for the sustained shutdowns.

It is understood that delays in the delivery of components, partly a result of the pandemic’s ongoing impact on global supply chains, has contributed to the delay in getting both plants restarted.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/shutdowns-affect-25-of-power-plants-at-any-one-time-says-report-1.4699793

Banana Republic 1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118020569#Comment_118020569

The fuel that container ships burn is like tar it’s dreadful for the environment.

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118025155#Comment_118025155

This is used in some of the last resort power stations like Tarbert as well isn’t it?

The new German govt is going greener by putting the move away from coal as a major priority and bringing the planned closures forward by 8 years to 2030, by allocation of 2% of land for wind farms and installation of solar panels on all suitable roofs.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58924480

cnocbui

I wonder how they plan to fund that? They already have the most expensive electricity in Europe because of the EEG levy, which comprises two thirds of the cost of electricity. The levy has been used to fund the transition to supposedly cheap clean energy. Funding these renewables has been so cheap, it's only cost Germans 1.2% of the average GDP per capita to pay for their electricity.

The existing levy has been such an issue they are slashing it for next year, which begs the question how they plan to pay for this new lot of strangely expensive cheap renewables.

Banana Republic 1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118016780#Comment_118016780

I have heard it’s 4kw energy in and 1 kw out. Heard it on robert Llewelyns podcast

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118029677#Comment_118029677

I would think it would depend on how it is used to generate energy. Add to natural gas, use it in a fuel cell, use it in a ICE based machine.

DumbBrunette

https://www.con-telegraph.ie/2021/10/15/construction-on-mayo-airborne-wind-energy-project-to-start-this-year/

This technology sounds very impractical, but tests on airborne wind energy to start in Mayo.

Banana Republic 1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118030350#Comment_118030350

No I think that’s the best case currently. To separate out H from H20 via electro sis requires 4kw in. burning Hydrogen is still harmful to living things as the combustion process emits NOX so putting it into ICE vehicles for example is not the answer, that and the combustion process is outrageously inefficient regardless of fuel.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118031652#Comment_118031652

When you electrolyse water, you get H and O. If you also collect and store the O - and you'd be mad not to - you can then burn the H and O together without producing any NOX. But your NOX boogyman is an unecessary diversion. Experiments on a modified Ford ztec engine showed you can burn H and air and with EGR, NOX emissions are a paltry 1 ppm.

NG powerstation operators would be over the moon if they could get their NOX emissions that low:

"Commercial lean premix combustors can reach NOx levels as low as 15 or even 9 ppmv. The lower of these numbers is adequate to meet the most stringent regulations now in place."

Wind turbines chop up birds and bats - solar concentrator power stations that use mirrors, vaporise every, bird, bat, or butterfly that strays into the light path. NOX is positively benign in comparison, if you are truly concerned about living things.

Honda's Clarity H powered car uses a fuel cell anyway, so it's likely a moot problem, pratically non-existant though it is.

Straw man or what?

RandomViewer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118025298#Comment_118025298

Steam boilers in industry use a variation as well, while smokier there is less burned so possibly little difference to gasoil in real time

Banana Republic 1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118032021#Comment_118032021

The bird and bat thing again….

lean burn tech increases nox. Egr valves bastardise the IC engine and they are removed from vehicles because it f this, ever heard of an emulator!

The Charleston Heston game that OEMs are playing with clinging onto the ICE is holding back progress.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118032134#Comment_118032134

EGR reduced NOX: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S036031990200157X

"The results of these experiments demonstrated that using EGR is an effective means to lowering NOx emissions to less than while also increasing engine output torque."

The bird and bat mortality is not insignificant. 4.12 dead birds per MW is a lot.

Banana Republic 1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118032214#Comment_118032214

That paper was from 2002, the diesel gate scandal revealed how that research was bastardised.

Heavy Industry runs on diesel the mainly for low down torque. Hydrogen engines run with spark plugs by necessity. JCB say they have a solution to this but so far it’s not commercially viable.

I wonder if you have any figures for how many birds fish and mammals drowned in oil slicks over the years.

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118032214#Comment_118032214

"4.12 birds per MW"

Are you missing a time scalar from your units of bird mortality?

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118033796#Comment_118033796

Maybe he's referring to a bunch of studies done around 2013 in the US. If that's the case - the time unit is "per year". At that time there was 60GW of installed capacity and estimated bird deaths from turbine collision was between 190,000 and 800,000 birds depending on the study and the adjustment factors used to compensate for the difficulty in collecting accurate numbers. To put that into perspective, in the same year, it was estimated that over 25 million birds were killed by transmission lines (collisions and electrocutions) and 2.4 BILLION were killed by domestic cats. In other words 0.02% of domestic cats caused more bird deaths in the US than those caused by the entire wind turbine generation capacity. It's barely statistical noise but renewable skeptics love to bring up bird deaths without any context to "prove" how bad wind generation is.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118038256#Comment_118038256

2.4 billion you say... electrocutions even...

Birds the size of giraffes - what next?

gjim

I'm starting to think you're a troll. But whatever, knowledge is only a google search away, you know? Here's what I got - https://birdelectrocution.org/quick-guidance-preventing-electrocution-on-birds/ - it even has little diagrams so you don't even have to bother reading anything.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118046325#Comment_118046325

Oh I can read:

"Surprisingly, some “modernized” lines in certain countries (e.g., Mongolia or Morocco)"

In order for electrocution to take place, you need to create a circuit, with the bird being the conductive path - hence needing a bird the size of a giraffe.

The cat predation figures are risible. The BBC quite recently had a program wherein domestic cats were monitored closely and the presenters and everyone involved were extremely puzzled by the finding that the cats were killing a tiny fraction of the number of birds expected and predicted by 'studies', which are all barely better than guesses, given the huge assumptions they make - stuff like 'it is thought that cats bring home 30% of their prey.' And from that sort of thing you end up with a 'scientific' study.

machiavellianme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118017349#Comment_118017349

How on earth do you "convert electrons to a gas and back to electrons"? I always thought that there were only 4 states of matter: solids, liquids, gases and plasma.