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Energy infrastructure

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  • Posts: 3,801 ✭✭✭[Deleted User]


    cnocbui wrote: »
    I think he's claiming they aren't intermittent so there is no problem. Solar panels generating useful output for 15% of a year is a perfectly usable, fully functional source of energy for society. If you can't see that, you are probably an anthropogenic global warming denier.

    Where’s the 15% come from. Are we talking about it being totally night time for 85% of the year. Also most renewables will be from wind in Ireland.


  • Posts: 3,801 ✭✭✭[Deleted User]


    cnocbui wrote: »
    France is probably propping up Europes renewables energy push with it's 84% availability rate nuclear energy via interconnectors. Those Germans are thick.

    Agreed on that one. Might change when merkels gone.


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


    Every time you add a thermal plant to the system you make the system more reliable.
    That has nothing to do with thermal vs non-thermal. Every time you add any type of extra generation capacity to the system, you make the system more reliable.

    But the aim isn't just to make the system as reliable as possible. You have a second objective which is as important: minimise the cost of the electricity to the consumer. And there are a bunch of other objectives (like not destroy the environment) also. Any Pareto optimal solution involves a trade off between these objectives.
    It is December 20nd at 5.05pm in 2029. It is a cold, dark and still Thursday evening. You are the system operator. During the past year the last of the fossil fuel plants were demolished because of the dominance of renewable energy. Many press releases were sent. Your experts assured you that “grid operators have simply improved their statistical tools to handle the forms of intermittency associated with wind and solar”.

    Now there is no wind and the sun went down on Carnsore Point an hour ago. There won’t be much sun and there won’t be any wind for the next 5 days. The small amount of storage on the grid (you had been advised by an industry expert that there was no need to spend billions on batteries) will run out in 20 minutes.

    The fellow with the ‘statistical tools’ seems to have knocked off early for the day.

    What do you do now?
    This is kind-of silly. Isn't there a fantasy role playing forum for this sort of thing?

    But no need to create a fantasy to explore scenarios like this. It's July 2021, the reliability of the Irish grid is under stress because 2 thermal plants have unexpectedly failed - if another one goes, load shedding is probably inevitable. You've been led to believe that the key to reliable grid operation is to have lots of thermal plants. What do you do now?


  • Registered Users Posts: 19,487 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    fvp4 wrote: »
    Where’s the 15% come from. Are we talking about it being totally night time for 85% of the year. Also most renewables will be from wind in Ireland.

    It comes from Meteireann's stats on the number of hours of sunshine Ireland gets in a year - between 1100 and 1600. I used 1300 to get 15%. Of course renewables fanatics will then claim that solar panels will still produce electricity under a full moon, so there is no arguing with that disingenuous mindset.

    If one tried to insist on the benefits of nuclear energy with reactors that could only produce their full output 15% of the year, and none at all in winter, when electricity consumption is at it's highest, the anti nukes would have a field day with their derision, and rightly so.

    Solar-Scotland-vs-demand.jpg

    As a grid power source, this sort of power delivery profile is a sick joke.

    I'm still waiting for a grid scale commercial solar power installition to be built here - after Covid, I could do with a laugh.

    Solars output profile is actually well matched to powering airconditioning requirements in hot climates. If I was back in Oz, I'd have solar panels in a flash. Imagine trying to power your house heat pump with solar panels here in winter. You would freeze. Thank goodness for gas turbines and French nuclear via an interconnector.


  • Posts: 3,801 ✭✭✭[Deleted User]


    cnocbui wrote: »
    It comes from Meteireann's stats on the number of hours of sunshine Ireland gets in a year - between 1100 and 1600. I used 1300 to get 15%. Of course renewables fanatics will then claim that solar panels will still produce electricity under a full moon, so there is no arguing with that disingenuous mindset.

    If one tried to insist on the benefits of nuclear energy with reactors that could only produce their full output 15% of the year, and none at all in winter, when electricity consumption is at it's highest, the anti nukes would have a field day with their derision, and rightly so.

    Solar-Scotland-vs-demand.jpg

    As a grid power source, this sort of power delivery profile is a sick joke.

    I'm still waiting for a grid scale commercial solar power installition to be built here - after Covid, I could do with a laugh.

    Solars output profile is actually well matched to powering airconditioning requirements in hot climates. If I was back in Oz, I'd have solar panels in a flash. Imagine trying to power your house heat pump with solar panels here in winter. You would freeze. Thank goodness for gas turbines and French nuclear via an interconnector.

    Solar panels produce results in daytime. Photons are what matter. If there were no photons it would be pitch dark. Also if Europe hooks up these inter connectors there will be demand somewhere all the time. So showing one countries output and demand is also disingenuous.

    You’ve probably been told this numerous times by now. In which case you are arguing in bad faith.

    As for nuclear you are right about that but Europe has a Nuclear backstop in France.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 9,761 ✭✭✭antoinolachtnai


    gjim wrote: »
    That has nothing to do with thermal vs non-thermal. Every time you add any type of extra generation capacity to the system, you make the system more reliable.

    But the aim isn't just to make the system as reliable as possible. You have a second objective which is as important: minimise the cost of the electricity to the consumer. And there are a bunch of other objectives (like not destroy the environment) also. Any Pareto optimal solution involves a trade off between these objectives.


    This is kind-of silly. Isn't there a fantasy role playing forum for this sort of thing?

    But no need to create a fantasy to explore scenarios like this. It's July 2021, the reliability of the Irish grid is under stress because 2 thermal plants have unexpectedly failed - if another one goes, load shedding is probably inevitable. You've been led to believe that the key to reliable grid operation is to have lots of thermal plants. What do you do now?

    First, that isn’t an accurate statement of the situation. It isn’t under that much stress. There is little or no risk of load shedding in July. You have not really given a full statement of the causes not the remedial measures that are being taken.

    Secondly, extra wind might add reliability (this is very arguable for technical reasons but we will leave it) but it adds basically no capacity to the system. Capacity has to be obtained elsewhere.

    Thirdly, output of different wind farms are closely related. Their outputs wax and wane together. This is not the case for thermal plants.

    In the current situation if you had to shed 1 or even 5 percent of the load for a few hours, we could live with it. If 70 percent of the generation went away for a week or two, it would be a very different picture.


  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,284 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    cnocbui wrote: »
    France is probably propping up Europes renewables energy push with it's 84% availability rate nuclear energy via interconnectors.

    And there is nothing wrong with that, it all adds stability to the grid. Each country focuses on what it is good at and supports one another. French Nuclear, Irish Wind, Norwegian Hydro, etc.
    cnocbui wrote: »
    It comes from Meteireann's stats on the number of hours of sunshine Ireland gets in a year - between 1100 and 1600. I used 1300 to get 15%. Of course renewables fanatics will then claim that solar panels will still produce electricity under a full moon, so there is no arguing with that disingenuous mindset.

    But even if we just got get 15% of out power from Solar, that is still a big win. Add 15% to 70% wind/hydro and now you are over 80% renewables.

    In conversations with people on topics like this, I've come to realise that some people seriously lack critical thinking skills.

    They only want a perfect solution, they ask does Solar work 100% or the time or does wind work 100% of the time and if the answer is no, then they dismiss it.

    The particularly stupid ones make the point that Solar doesn't work at night, as if that is some major discovery :rolleyes:

    They don't understand that there is no such thing as a 100% perfect power source. All power plants have a capacity factor and non are 100%, Gas is about 56%, Coal about 40%, Wind isn't far off at 35% (and improving).

    All grids make use of different plants to make up for these variations and all grids have multiple connectors and backups to fill the gaps when things go wrong.

    No, Wind/Solar aren't 100% perfect either. But when you start adding lots of wind and solar and hydro and hydrogen and batteries and interconnectors, etc. you suddenly find that you are quickly approaching a clean grid.

    There is no single silver bullet solution here, but all these technologies together will absolutely help us move to a much cleaner grid.
    In the case above if you had to shed 1 or even 5 percent of the load for a few hours, we could live with it. If 70 percent of the generation went away for a week or two, it would be a very different picture.

    Again why are you making up fantasy situations, as I've explained multiple times, if the wind isn't blowing, then we will power up the gas turbines and import over the interconnectors.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,508 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Where to begin about Scotland and renewables considering last year they produced the equivalent of 97.4% of Scottish demand ?

    probably here : https://reneweconomy.com.au/scotlands-renewable-record-cements-its-place-as-uks-onshore-wind-hub/


    Solar in England produced more power than Hydro in Scotland which indicates the scope as prices continue to fall year after year

    England offshore wind exceeded our annual electricity demand , so we and Scotland should look into that too.

    Nuclear only provided 16% of power on the 'greenest' day in GB

    In 2020, Scotland exported almost 20.4 TWh


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,761 ✭✭✭antoinolachtnai


    bk wrote: »



    Again why are you making up fantasy situations, as I've explained multiple times, if the wind isn't blowing, then we will power up the gas turbines and import over the interconnectors.

    Ah, so you are proposing relying on building many more natural gas stations to provide new and replacement capacity and passing that construction cost on to customers through an increased capacity charge on consumers. I understand better what you are proposing now.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,328 ✭✭✭Banana Republic 1


    cnocbui wrote: »
    It comes from Meteireann's stats on the number of hours of sunshine Ireland gets in a year - between 1100 and 1600. I used 1300 to get 15%. Of course renewables fanatics will then claim that solar panels will still produce electricity under a full moon, so there is no arguing with that disingenuous mindset.

    If one tried to insist on the benefits of nuclear energy with reactors that could only produce their full output 15% of the year, and none at all in winter, when electricity consumption is at it's highest, the anti nukes would have a field day with their derision, and rightly so.

    Solar-Scotland-vs-demand.jpg

    As a grid power source, this sort of power delivery profile is a sick joke.

    I'm still waiting for a grid scale commercial solar power installition to be built here - after Covid, I could do with a laugh.

    Solars output profile is actually well matched to powering airconditioning requirements in hot climates. If I was back in Oz, I'd have solar panels in a flash. Imagine trying to power your house heat pump with solar panels here in winter. You would freeze. Thank goodness for gas turbines and French nuclear via an interconnector.

    There is light from dawn till dusk. What your saying is Ireland is in darkness 85% of the time. There’s a 12 hectare solar farm going up near me. Ease back on the spoofing.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 9,859 ✭✭✭tom1ie


    If your wanted to do that you would have to place orders for vast amounts of hydrogen storage by the year after next.

    You would also need to triple or quadruple the current wind base. You would need to build this in a five year period from 2024 to 2029.

    It is all possible but very ambitious especially because the hydrogen storage technology and floating offshore wind technology hasn’t really been industrialized yet.

    Very difficult to do for 2030, but certainly very feasible for 2040 or even 2035 depending how the technology matures.

    Agreed but we could and should become a world leader on this.

    Plenty of wind available for us to harness, we just need to build up hydrogen storage and the likes of moneypoint one and two plus others.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,859 ✭✭✭tom1ie


    Well if you want to close Moneypoint, keep adding renewables and don’t have any other strategy you will have to build a lot more natural gas plants.

    If there is low wind during the summer it would be very optimistic to assume that there would be electricity available to import from other countries via interconnectors. All these other countries are trying to do the same thing we are doing.

    The wind is always blowing out at sea even with high pressure systems.
    With hydrogen backup there is a way to 100% renewable but not by 2030.
    Phasing out fossil fuels makes sense.


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


    First, that isn’t an accurate statement of the situation.
    At least it's a situation grounded in present reality unlike your fantasy scenario.

    Out of curiosity, you've never explained what your energy strategy would look like as it relates to electricity?

    I get it that you think allowing more wind is folly given that you are sure it will result in the country being occasionally plunged into weeks of darkness. You've also been quite clear that you think thermal plants are the only way the provide supply security.

    So what would be a better strategy than increasing wind and solar generation capacity in Ireland? The status-quo isn't an answer as demand is increasing and older power stations come to their end-of-life and need replacing.

    Given your consistent anti-renewables and your pro-thermal generation stance, I can only guess you want to buck the global trend and build more coal and gas? Or is there some subtlety that I'm missing in your position?


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,761 ✭✭✭antoinolachtnai


    gjim wrote: »
    At least it's a situation grounded in present reality unlike your fantasy scenario.

    Out of curiosity, you've never explained what your energy strategy would look like as it relates to electricity?

    I get it that you think allowing more wind is folly given that you are sure it will result in the country being occasionally plunged into weeks of darkness. You've also been quite clear that you think thermal plants are the only way the provide supply security.

    So what would be a better strategy than increasing wind and solar generation capacity in Ireland? The status-quo isn't an answer as demand is increasing and older power stations come to their end-of-life and need replacing.

    Given your consistent anti-renewables and your pro-thermal generation stance, I can only guess you want to buck the global trend and build more coal and gas? Or is there some subtlety that I'm missing in your position?

    Probably be better if you went back and actually read the thread you are participating in before making thoughtless and needless personal remarks.

    I am still waiting for your explanation of the alternative to thermal plants to provide enough supply security to cater for a two week calm period during the winter.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,508 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    I am still waiting for your explanation of the alternative to thermal plants to provide enough supply security to cater for a two week calm period during the winter.
    Actually you'll have to wait until you've provided proof that thermal plant will be removed because until then the question is hypothetical.


    BTW in deserts you can heat up panels during the day and then use thermoelectric generators to get power out of them at night. Literally solar panels that work at night.

    And the distance from here to Morocco is less than some of existing HVDC lines https://www.power-technology.com/features/featurethe-worlds-longest-power-transmission-lines-4167964/



    Besides as you well know the main cost with dispatchable thermal plant is the fuel. And you should also read up on grid constraints and future capacity and prices paid for reserve or peaking plant. In the UK legend has it that at one time there was a gas power plant that was only ever used when Coronation Street ended.


  • Posts: 0 Gwen Damaged Pita


    I am still waiting for your explanation of the alternative to thermal plants to provide enough supply security to cater for a two week calm period during the winter.

    Why are you obsessed with bonkers scenarios with no basis in reality.

    Please provide some evidence that there has been a 14 day straight period with no wind over the Ireland at any point in the last 100 years.

    It's your scenario, you should be able to prove that it's a realistic one


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,859 ✭✭✭tom1ie


    Probably be better if you went back and actually read the thread you are participating in before making thoughtless and needless personal remarks.

    I am still waiting for your explanation of the alternative to thermal plants to provide enough supply security to cater for a two week calm period during the winter.

    Why do you keep ignoring hydrogen storage that will be generated by excess wind/solar?


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


    Probably be better if you went back and actually read the thread you are participating in before making thoughtless and needless personal remarks.
    I don't think I was being personal but I apologise if it came across that way. I'm genuinely curious.

    I'm enjoying this thread (my first post was a year ago and I was following a bit before that btw). It has really help clarify my thinking on the subject, particularly helping to understand the energy revolution we're living through.

    The more I've learned and read the more I've gone from being fairly pessimistic about achieving a carbon-free future to becoming very optimistic. In my mind, it's now a question of "when" rather than "if". And we've barely started to electrify the ICE fleet yet. When that kicks in, it provides a huge sink for cheap off-peak renewable power.

    All the data (and this is a data rich subject) - prices, trends, experience, etc. - show that solar and wind are basically killing it. Even in US the trends are clear - lot's of great data here - https://www.eia.gov/electricity/ - for example. Check out the tables of new and retired power stations in the US on the same site - it's 70% renewables and then NG. Or the capacity factors - coal is down to 40% or so. And this is even after 4 years of Trump - who ran with a renewables skeptic, coal promoting agenda.

    These trends are positive no? More of humanity energy requirements are coming from carbon-free sources - which also happen to be cheaper - and this process seems to be accelerating.

    For Ireland, the global energy transformation is particularly positive, given the huge reliance on imports to meet basic energy needs. This reliance is dropping and if trends continue Ireland will become a net energy exporter. That's good news right? Like this quote from a link posted by Captn Midnight a bit earlier:
    “The fact that Scotland’s own supply is secure, and its abundant generation of electricity via wind means that Scotland has long been a net exporter of electricity. In 2020, Scotland exported almost 20.4 TWh, equivalent to powering every household in Scotland for 26 months. This had an estimated wholesale value of almost £763 million”, write the Scottish government on their renewable energy data site.
    I mean Scotland isn't even particularly noteworthy in wind uptake and yet they are exporting nearly a billion euro worth of energy as a result. This is more money than the Scottish government earns from North Sea oil, btw. Are you not happy that, Ireland will also become a huge net exporter of clean-green energy? That energy prices will no longer depending on volatile commodity (oil, NG, coal) prices set on international markets?

    And this is happening even while there are so many advances happening with a huge variety of technologies. While I expect most will be dead ends (biomass, rooftop PV, wave/tidal, even hydrogen in my opinion) but any one of them becoming commercial will only accelerate this process - but the process will continue even without them.

    The bottom line is that I'm optimistic about a carbon-free energy future and I just don't see why you're consistently so pessimistic. And I wanted to understand the basis of your pessimism by asking what you saw as a better path forward for a country like Ireland? Could you sketch your idea of what would be a better way to plan for the country's future energy needs?


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,410 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    tom1ie wrote: »
    Why do you keep ignoring hydrogen storage that will be generated by excess wind/solar?

    Isn't hydrogen a bit" contentious still " ?
    It's doable certainly but it's expensive and not particularly efficient and not that cheap to store either - time will tell if it's going to economic or not

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,284 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    Ah, so you are proposing relying on building many more natural gas stations to provide new and replacement capacity and passing that construction cost on to customers through an increased capacity charge on consumers. I understand better what you are proposing now.

    Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying and it will actually end up CHEAPER for the consumer!

    This isn't even an environmental argument, even on a purely economic basis it will be cheaper to the end customer to build both NG plants and Wind power and only use the NG when the wind isn't blowing.

    I know it doesn't sound intuitive, it sounds wrong, but bare with me.

    When you look at the total cost of generating electricity over a 30 year period (a typical lifespan of fossil fuel plants) a simplified version of the calculation looks like so (see LCOE for more detailed version):

    - (Capital Cost of "plant" + operating cost + decommissioning cost) / energy generated

    When it comes to fossil fuel plants, they are "relatively" cheap to build, but they cost a lot to run, mostly the cost of the fuel. Over a 30 year period, the vast majority of the cost of generating electricity for them is the cost of the fuels.

    By comparison wind's capital costs are roughly similar to a NG plant. However their ongoing operating costs once built are a fraction of the cost of the NG plant to generate the same amount of electricity, as obviously wind is their fuel and is free, so it is basically just the low maintenance cost. The only downside of wind is that it needs a backup.

    This actually leads you to a scenario, where yes, over a 30 year period, it is actually cheaper to build both the NG plants and Wind turbines and only use the NG when needed!

    Again to clarify, you have two scenarios:

    Scenario 1: Build only NG plants and run them constantly for 30 years

    Scenario 2: Build both wind turbines + NG plants and only run the NG plants when needed over 30 years.

    Surprisingly, Scenario 2 actually works out cheaper to the consumer over 30 years!!

    And that is not even taking into account the environmental impact or carbon taxing/subsidies. And it isn't taking into account new technologies like Green Hydrogen feeding turbines as others have mentioned. Nor does it take into account the less wear and tear on the NG plants, so they might actually end up lasting much longer and thus help reduce capital costs.

    The above purely economic argument is why wind and solar are exploding all over the world. Even in the US under Trump who tried to do everything possible to stop it, it just makes too much economic sense even without subsidies, etc. for operators not to use it. In the US in 2020, under Trump, 76% of new generatino was renewables.

    The economics of renewables are so attractive, even including the cost of NG to back them up, it still makes sense.

    Really the competition here isn't Wind versus NG, it is Wind + NG versus Wind + Interconnectors/storage/hydrogen/smart grid. Basically NG is competing for the X position in Wind + X.

    The speed at which the costs of other technologies are dropping, with for instance wind + storage already being cheaper then NG peakers, the future for even NG is looking rough.


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  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,284 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    BTW I should probably add, assuming we can get the two NG plants currently down back up, then we don't actually need to build much more NG capacity. We already have close to enough. So it is more about adding more wind power capacity and upgrading the grid to better handle it and building interconnectors, etc.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,508 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    tom1ie wrote: »
    Why do you keep ignoring hydrogen storage that will be generated by excess wind/solar?
    Markcheese wrote: »
    Isn't hydrogen a bit" contentious still " ?
    It's doable certainly but it's expensive and not particularly efficient and not that cheap to store either - time will tell if it's going to economic or not
    Like I keep saying it looks like you can add 20% of hydrogen to the gas mains. There's no need to store the stuff , yet.

    Natural gas usage in 2019 was 4,571 ktoe 20% of that would be 914 ktoe. After that you can start storing the stuff.

    Wind energy production was only 862 ktoe, factor in conversion efficiencies and the gas mains can adsorb multiples of the wind power we have installed now.


    Electricity used a little over 3,000 ktoe from gas, peat, oil and coal. So a long way to go before fossil fuel can be replaced. The issues are economic rather than technical.


    The main problem with hydrogen as an energy store is that it is inefficient to generate from water. You need 1.45 - 1.5 Volts. Urea only needs 0.37 Volts but it's much harder to put back together again.


    ktoe = thousand tonnes oil equivalent


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,108 ✭✭✭Ben D Bus


    bk wrote: »
    we don't actually need to build much more NG capacity. We already have close to enough.

    My only issue with your argument might be this. If we're aiming to displace fossil fuels we need to be doing it across the board. So migrating transport from petrol/diesel to EVs. Moving from gas heating to electric etc. So overall electricity demand could rise considerably as we make the big move. Thus requiring additional generating capacity including more NG stations.


  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,284 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    Ben D Bus wrote: »
    My only issue with your argument might be this. If we're aiming to displace fossil fuels we need to be doing it across the board. So migrating transport from petrol/diesel to EVs. Moving from gas heating to electric etc. So overall electricity demand could rise considerably as we make the big move. Thus requiring additional generating capacity including more NG stations.

    Maybe, maybe not. It depends how we add these to the grid, if managed properly we may get away with more or less with the existing NG capacity we currently have and instead adding a lot more wind + interconnectors + smart meters

    Take EV's, they mostly charge at night, which is perfect, as we have a large excess of power generating capacity at night that they can make use of.

    Also smart meters can help greatly with this. You can set your car charger to only charge when the price of electricity is low, which will basically match with when the wind is blowing and their is excess generation.

    If the wind stops blowing, then the price of electricity increases and your car stops charging, unless you badly need it charged and decide to pay the higher price. Smart meters can allow EV's to closely match excess wind generation.

    Home heating is a bit more complicated, but combined with good insulation and smart meters, again you can program your heat pump to only run when the price of electricity is low (night time or when the wind is blowing).

    Worst case scenario, even if we do end up needing to add another NG plant or two, they are still vastly more efficient and thus less polluting then Diesel in a car or oil heating. It would still be a big net benefit.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,508 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Ben D Bus wrote: »
    My only issue with your argument might be this. If we're aiming to displace fossil fuels we need to be doing it across the board. So migrating transport from petrol/diesel to EVs. Moving from gas heating to electric etc. So overall electricity demand could rise considerably as we make the big move. Thus requiring additional generating capacity including more NG stations.
    Insulation, insulation, insulation.

    About 1GW more electricity is used in winter so figure most of that for heating.

    Until renewables dominate power generation it's more efficient to burn gas for heating where it's needed rather than at the power station.


    AFAIK liquid fuel made from renewables costs about four times what fossil fuel costs. Germans are doing work there. It's a hard limit on what fossil fuel can cost.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,859 ✭✭✭tom1ie


    Markcheese wrote: »
    Isn't hydrogen a bit" contentious still " ?
    It's doable certainly but it's expensive and not particularly efficient and not that cheap to store either - time will tell if it's going to economic or not

    Doesn’t matter if it isn’t efficient at the moment to make- as it’s being made by excess renewable that’d be dumped or possibly exported, IF,the demand was there at that time.
    Storing hydrogen technology is improving all the time and my understanding is it would be viable in a few years when used with moneypoint one and two.


  • Posts: 0 Gwen Damaged Pita


    A massive issue has been highlighted recently, with LCOE calculations for fossil fuel/nuclear/hydro power generation. It has resulted in what is essentially an investment bubble that is looking like its going to burst very, very soon.
    A large and rapidly-expanding global financial bubble now exists around conventional coal, gas, nuclear, and hydro power energy assets. This bubble has in part been created by mainstream energy analyses that have, for the last decade, significantly underestimated the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) from conventional power plants because they assume these plants will be able to successfully sell the same quantity of electricity each year from now through 2040 and beyond. This assumption has been false for at least ten years. The rates at which conventional power plants are utilized will continue to decrease as competitive pressure from near-zero marginal cost solar photovoltaic and onshore wind power, and battery energy storage continue to grow exponentially worldwide.

    Since 2010, the LCOE figures published in mainstream analyses and used by policymakers, regulators, civic leaders, utilities, asset owners, and investors have significantly underestimated the actual cost of electricity generated by prospective coal, gas, nuclear, and hydro power plants. This in turn means that conventional energy asset valuations are heavily overstated. Fundamental valuation of an asset is based on expected future cash flows that are, in turn, dependent upon projected revenues and costs. The projected revenues and costs of any power plant are dependent upon its assumed capacity factor (or utilization rate), which is the fraction of its generating capacity it is actually able to produce and sell.

    Key Findings
    • Conventional energy assets are severely mispriced, and their overvaluation is creating a growing asset valuation bubble in the conventional energy sector.
    • Coal, gas, nuclear, and hydro power are no longer competitive with the combination of SWB, even using inaccurate mainstream LCOE calculations.
    • Solar and wind power reached cost parity and became cheaper than coal, gas, nuclear, and hydro power several years sooner than mainstream analysts reported.
    • The widening gap between rapidly increasing conventional energy LCOE and rapidly decreasing SWB costs means that the SWB disruption will proceed faster than expected.
    • Coal and gas power plants with integrated carbon capture and storage (CCS) are doubly mispriced (overvalued).
    • Governments must protect people, not incumbent companies or industries, from the financial risk of the conventional energy asset bubble.
    • Carbon neutrality can be achieved more quickly and cheaply than generally expected.

    Reviewed in detail in the video below



    Additional resources related to this below

    ReThinkX site with info

    ReThinkX Report on the issue

    Carbon Brief - Integrated Assessment Models explained

    Michael Grub paper 1

    Michael Grub paper 2

    IEA - Road map to 2050


  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,284 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    Yep, the real danger for consumers paying too much for electricity is that fossil fuel plants end up as stranded assets.

    We have already seen this with Moneypoint, only just over half way through it's expected life and we are already planning to shut it down. Not necessarily because of environmental reasons, but because NG plants are cheaper then coal plants, so it doesn't make sense to keep running it.

    But if we were to build lots of new NG plants (+ liquid NG import facilities like some want), there is a real danger that new technology, like Wind + storage will also overtake them and end up much cheaper and we end up paying for useless gas plants.

    We are already seeing the cost of Wind + Storage drop lower then NG peaker plants, so they are already an endangered species. CCGT is still viable and currently needed, but ten years from now, with continuing drops in storage costs, hydrogen, interconnectors, etc. They might start to struggle too.

    10 years ago the idea that the cost of wind + storage would beat out NG peakers was unimaginable, yet here we are now. 20 years ago the idea that we would be more then 10% of wind was scoffed at, yet here we are at 44% now. Things are changing fast.


  • Posts: 0 Gwen Damaged Pita


    For those looking for more info on deep water wind turbines, which we're likely to see a whole lot more of off the west coast over the next decade





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  • Registered Users Posts: 226 ✭✭specialbyte


    I found this video super interesting. It is from Engineering With Rosie (a YouTuber) with the hosts of the Redefining Energy podcast. Their podcast is all about the world of energy financing and how that is being affected by the rise in cheap renewables. I recommend both as interesting and engaging content producers on the topic of renewables.

    The video is great:

    TL;DR in years to come renewables will become more abundant and the costs will continue to drop. However, intermittent renewables are competing against other intermittent renewables in the energy market as they produce at the same time i.e. when the wind is blowing. This means when renewables are providing low amounts of energy the price of non-intermittant sources (gas, goal, battery storage) will rise as they will be in high demand and they will offer more value to the grid.

    It's interesting to see renewable energy from not just an engineering perspective but from a finance perspective.



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