Energy infrastructure

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118143088#Comment_118143088

How come we can push ahead with the Arklow project but equinor pull out of moneypoint 1 and 2?

Has construction been awarded to a specific company for the Arklow project?

Apogee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118143501#Comment_118143501

There was an article by Mick Clifford of the Examiner last week which covers some of the background to the Equinor decision:

https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-40737345.html

dubhthach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118143501#Comment_118143501

Arklow is a lower risk given there is already turbines on site + a grid connection. Also the original design for Arklow was for 200 turbines which went through the planning system and got a foreshore lease. However in phase 1 they only installed 7 turbines (25MW combined). As a result it's probably the easiest offshore project to get progressed as most of the planning and regulatory hurdles were already passed nearly 20 years ago (Phase 1 went live in 2004!).

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118144758#Comment_118144758

Please remind me again why Arklow has been stagnant for 20 years when wind generation has expanded massively globally ?

dubhthach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118145126#Comment_118145126

Airtricity at the time blamed lack of Gov support for cancellation of Phase II in 2007, of course we all remember what happened in the following 3-5 years.

Airtricity has long recognised the potential of offshore wind farm development and was the

first company in Ireland to develop offshore wind. In January 2002 the company obtained a

foreshore lease to develop a 520MW offshore wind farm on the Arklow Bank.  The first phase

(25.2MW) was completed in June 2004 in co-development with GE Energy and further

phases were put on hold due to the lack of Government support for offshore wind. The

company then concentrated on other markets and in May 2006 announced its plans for

development of Supergrid, a European Offshore project designed to marry the technology of

offshore wind with the latest transmission technology.

Archived copy on Wayback machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20110928154816/http://www.airtricity.com/assets/Uploads2/Press-Releases/Offshore-support-press-release1.pdf

jlang

Is it safe enough to assume the new windmills to be installed on the Arklow Bank will be of a newer generation than what went up or would have in the early 2000s? (Bigger, more efficient or otherwise taking advantage of the huge quantity that have been developed and deployed in the interim.)

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118146825#Comment_118146825

Wikipedia said only half as many needed now due to technical improvements which I'm guessing is basically longer blades.

Apogee

Interview with Mark Foley CEO of Eirgrid

https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/highlights-from-the-pat-kenny-show/is-our-power-supply-in-danger

323

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118146825#Comment_118146825

Spot on, a lot bigger turbines now. Briefly for a time, the couple of turbines at Arklow were the largest installed, the first marine rated turbines over 3 MW to go offshore. (GE prototypes at the time, thrown in for free to gather test data far as I remember). GE are currently building 12 to 14MW systems. Seen SSE are now talking of installing just 60 or so turbines for the same original name-plate power of the field.

Pete_Cavan

I see BNM are looking for "Owner’s Engineer" services for Timahoe North Solar Farm;

https://irl.eu-supply.com/ctm/Supplier/PublicPurchase/201455/1/0

Some more info on the project here (although this planning application doesn't seem to relate to the PV panels themselves);

https://www.timahoenorthgrid.ie/index.html

323

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

Hi, sorry, for comment on oldish post. Deals long done and this concept is well under way.

Spain/Morocco interconnection has been in place for many years, 2 x HVDC links, believe they've signed the deal on a third to bring North Africa's solar into the mix just as as you suggested. Logical starting point as only a short hop across.

Thought the EuroAfrica Interconnector was still way in the future, told last week, apparently it's starting soon. Greece-Crete-Cyprus-Egypt.

More are in planning.

Sam Russell

If hydrogen has a real future for large vehicles then surely it makes more sense for North African countries to look to go solar -> hydrogen, and ship the gas rather than solar -> electricity and ship by long DC connectors.

Countries like Algeria have lots of land that sits in high levels of solar, and have the liquid gas experience. They have the possibilities of generating huge levels of hydrogen but maybe deserts have lots of sun but no water..

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118160103#Comment_118160103

As of 2019, the interconnectors between Spain and Morocco were mostly used by the latter to import energy from Spain.

Capt'n Midnight

Plans for 3,200Km undersea interconnector for Oz to Singapore

https://www.powerengineeringint.com/smart-grid-td/td-infrastructure/building-an-australia-singapore-power-link/

Getting past Indonesia would be a political issue I'd imagine, and it's a wee bit close to Krakatoa

The tech specs are interesting because they'd be similar to other projects. The 3% loss per 1,000km is what makes interconnectors possible, and high voltage electronics are getting better all the time.

Adopting the current technology, the interconnector will most likely be configured in a bipolar mode to offer 2 to 3GW power capacity, using two individual and identical HVDC underwater cables.

In the event of one cable failure, this arrangement allows using the intact cable into monopolar mode with earth return over the repair duration, enabling half of the electricity capacity to be transmitted.

Typical linear weights of these subsea HVDC cables range from 40 kg/m to 60 kg/m with diameters in the order of 150 mm and a capacity exceeding 1GW. It is estimated that the total cable weight of this interconnector (two off 3,200km cables) would reach 300,000 to 400,000 tonnes.

...

The electrical loss through HVDC cable is approximately 3% per 1,000km resulting in a 10% total electrical loss along this interconnector.

cnocbui

A simmilar proposed project for 15 GW of solar was recently rejected on environmental grounds, though that did involve wetlands. I wouldn't count your chooks until they are hatched. It will probably go ahead, but contray to the perception Australia is like the Sahara, it isn't. Someone needs to have a good look at the consequences of putting several square km of scrub in the shade, not to mention probably clearing a good deal of it.

"June 21, 2021: The Australian government has rejected plans for a $36 billion wind, solar and hydrogen project in a remote area of Western Australia, leaving what would have been one of the world's largest green energy projects in limbo for now.

In a decision dated June 15, published on the environment department's website, Environment Minister Sussan Ley ruled that the project, the Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH), "will have clearly unacceptable impacts" on internationally recognised wetlands and migratory bird species.

The AREH project, located in the state's Pilbara region, was designed to initially build 15 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity, eventually to be expanded to 26 GW and produce green hydrogen and ammonia for export."

Markcheese

Any and every mega project has mega impact - it'd be a massive land use change , doesn't mean a major solar project couldn't work and have limited impact ,but they probably need to scale it back a long way .

, I hadn't realized the pilbarra region was a major wetland ..

josip

It's mostly just red, red and loads more bloody red. Wouldn't do any harm to stick some of it under a bit of solar.

gjim

"that’s not true, nuclear can ramp up production quickly just a matter of controlling rods"

Eh no - traditional and nearly all current designs were not engineered for flexible operation. For older designs, when forced to, they prefer just dumping excess steam rather than adjusting the reactor temperature.

"Ramping up and down" for nuclear actually just means throwing away excess energy which makes nuclear energy even more expensive as the cost of output is dominated by capital.

It already costs between $130 and $200 per MWh based on an average capacity factor of nearly 90%. Operating a plant at half the capacity factor basically doubles the cost of the electricity output.

That's why nobody will go near building nuclear unless they're guaranteed a prices for full capacity output - like the Hinckley C deal in the UK.

So in theory a nuclear reactor output can be varied but in practice, the cost means that nobody is contemplating such a thing. There's talk of focus on building "flexibility" into future designs in the industry, but this is just engineering talk and ignores the painful finances of running a nuclear reactor at say average 60% capacity.

With a legacy fleet of reactors, where the capital cost is considered "sunk" (i.e. the nuclear plant is "free"), then you can afford to just bleed excess steam into the air but for new build, there's no chance.

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118160103#Comment_118160103

These are interconnectors to support load balancing/demand following. I view them as completely different to plan for bulk export solar power from Africa to Europe - which generally require in the order of 10GW transmission capacity.

There have been "bulk export solar power from Africa to Europe" projects on the go for at least a decade and there are still a few that haven't been abandoned (yet) like Xlinks and TuNur.

These projects have all been undermined by the incredible price falls (around 85%) for solar PV panels in the last decade. The cost of building long range transmission infrastructure has not fallen, so it's now easier and cheaper to just buy twice as many PV panels and set them up in Europe - even if they only provide 2/3rds the efficiency compared to operating them in Africa. It's cheaper than building long underwater HVDC lines and transmission infrastructure.

You can see this in the new generation figures - there's a large amount of solar being rolled out around northern Europe despite the less than ideal conditions for solar power. But the panels are now so cheap, it's still competitive to generate electricity in bulk this way.

And "keeping it local" has other attractions in terms of energy security and not having to deal with unstable or autocratic regimes. Europe is already exposed to implicit Russian blackmail because of natural gas dependence. You're making yourself very vulnerable if your electricity transmission lines carrying bulk supply run through a third country.

For now, I don't see any of these bulk energy export projects getting off the ground at all. The headwinds against them are too strong. They are unable to offer a compelling price advantage over locally produced solar power, they are hugely capital expensive, and they expose a country to massive energy security risk.

This might be of interest to some here

Markcheese

Does wind speed count for much ? Would have thought consistent wind would be much more important ?

specialbyte

Wind speed has a huge impact to making a turbine viable.

The amount of power generated by a wind turbine is proportional to the cube of the wind speed. This means that increasing the average wind speed from 6 m/s to 7 m/s results in 60% more power from the same turbine and an increase in annual energy production of 36%.

– Source

Consistency can be valuable. It's one of the benefits of off-shore wind turbines is that the winds tend to be much more consistent off-shore. Most on-shore turbines in Ireland have a capacity factor of 33%. Meaning that they produce peak power for 33 percentage of the hours of the year. Though they tend to produce some power about 85% of the time, just not always at peak power. Off-shore turbines in the North Sea are seeing capacity factors of 40-50%, which is a good indicator for how off-shore wind turbines see strong winds much more consistently than on-shore turbines.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/110142483#Comment_110142483

5bn for a nuclear plant, FFS.

Hinkley C in England is costing 28bn euros to just construct.

The cost to the consumer is expected to be an additional 50bn sterling over it's lifetime to cover the high cost strike point over others.

That's not even starting in decommissioning a plant.

Plants should not be closed down till they are past date and that should be stretched out if possible but the taxpayer can't be made bear the cost of nuclear energy that has gone on for too long.

Nuclear power is incredible but it never really delivered.

If it had,all other concerns could have been worked on and met.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118160103#Comment_118160103

Problem is it will take many many many HVDC interconnectors to transport the solar electrons that are needed.

Hopefully HV cable technology evolves further.

Shell buying windfarms, not sure how I feel about that

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2021/1118/1261750-shell-buys-51-of-irish-floating-offshore-wind-project/

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118188037#Comment_118188037

How many off shore wind projects are in development?

This blue star/shell one,

Emerald off the south coast

The Arklow banks

moneyPoint 1 and 2 (which will be built at some stage).

Anymore?

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118188037#Comment_118188037

Well , if you want to find companies who know how to project manage off shore work and handle the finance , it's going to be the likes of shell..

dubhthach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118188037#Comment_118188037

Given the capital cost of that project ye need someone with deep pockets onboard. Interesting that the largest floating wind farms are generally in range of 50 - 88MW see:

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2021/10/19/worlds-largest-floating-offshore-wind-farm-fully-operational/

https://www.offshore-mag.com/renewable-energy/article/14188882/floating-offshore-wind-park-to-power-two-major-north-sea-field-centers

So the proposal here for 1.35GW is an order of magnitude bigger than anything ever built with the technology, having Shell onboard will make raising finance for it considerably easier. Of course from their point of view there's the added benefit of 'Green Washing'.

Markcheese

https://youtu.be/ge4ux1Y1ric

Nothing particularly new in here - but it's well laid out - and kind of sums up the hype of a near term hydrogen golden bullet - especially if new large scale wind is accompanied by large grid scale batteries buffering their output - there just isn't going to be much cheap or free wind powered electricity going to power / subsidize a hydrogen economy -

Doesn't mean hydrogen won't have a place in for instance generators or heavy machinery - but it won't be cheap -

Markcheese

https://youtu.be/vrKvj2MHLVw

And if the last one wasn't enough ,this one is a punch in the gut to just putting hydrogen into the gas grid

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118191718#Comment_118191718

"We engineers; were all stuck in this real world" Oh no - say it ain't so - I just read this article about this promising new research...

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193073#Comment_118193073

How do you mean ?

RandomViewer

With rocketing electricity prices and ant-rural propaganda from some government members I can see a huge number of objections to any power cables coming ashore along the west coast, Tie them up in courts for decades

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193152#Comment_118193152

Nuclear fusion is a decade away and has been for 70 years. It is not easy to control an H bomb.

Nuclear energy is going to be so cheap, we will not need to meter it - 1960s.

The steam car looked promising in the 1910 era, but thermodynamics did for it in a car, which is why it never made it - OK for railway trains, but could not be scaled for a car. I suspect hydrogen might be the same.

Engineers tend to run the slide rule over these things.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193152#Comment_118193152

I mean the opposite of what Sam Russel is saying. That quote is from the excellent video you linked, and it highlites a serious problem with this infrastructrue thread and the predominant narrative that renewables are an ovious perfect answer to reducing CO2 emissions - no need to consider nuclear - because renewables are the answer. Obviously they aren't, because the grid may have diurnal cyclical demand, but it does not have intermittent random demand that renewables are a good fit for. In order to preserve this fictional vision of renewables being the answer, this thread is stuffed full of post, after post of appeals to 'promissing new technologies - full spectrum solar cells, new battery tech, flow batteries, endlessly blowing reliable offshore wind that, hydrogen generated from excess renewables that can be stuffed down depleted gas wells, and so on. All of which I have previously complained about as pie in the sky.

So that engineer was expressing the same sort of frustration I have with this seemingly endless appeal to unproven, but superficially promising sounding 'solutions', like hydrogen supplanting natural gas, which superficially sounds good and seems logical, but which turns out to be unworkable in reality, for the reasons he explained.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193516#Comment_118193516

Nuclear fusion for power generation is nothing like a hydrogen bomb and stopping it from behaving like one is not remotely close to the problem - Jesus!

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193747#Comment_118193747

You are correct. Nuclear fusion is nothing like an H bomb - the former has never made any appearance whatsoever - but unfortunately the H bomb has.

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193739#Comment_118193739

Some of the tech is literally pipe-dreams - it'll either never scale or it's just victim of timing -

Most big new tech breakthroughs is 10 to 15 years off being available commercially , (although the likes of Tesla are starting to bring that development time down ...)

Nuclear is probably a good bit longer again - I've no doubt that when the french finally get the EPR Design and construction right that the price will drop , maybe 8- 10 billion per reactor then add grid costs and battery costs to help balance out the peaks , but that's probably a decade off in itself - then years of planning - plus another 8 to 10 years of construction -

It's still 30 years off and bonkers expensive

- the Irish grid is currently planning on hitting 70% renewables by the end of the decade - with current tech -and that's including a large transition to electric transport and electric home heating - any new magic bullets that appear will just be a bonus -

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193739#Comment_118193739

The problem of hydrogen in gas supplies was explained by running a slide rule over the numbers - which shows it will not work.

The problem with many 'solutions' to the CO2 emissions are either just green washing or unproven vapourware.

The Preto rule - 80% of the value is in 20% of the sample. To solve the climate change they should start on the high yield items, but politically, the Saudis, the Russians, the coal producers, and other fossil fuel interests are fighting every attempt to control them. They are part of the 80% of the problem. Recycling plastic bottles is way, way down the list - but that gets the attention of the media.

Nuclear might be part of the global solution, but not for Ireland. Just run the slide rule over the numbers. It just does not scale for us - they are too big and we would need a back up for when it goes off line, so we would need two of them. It would take too long to get it into construction, too long to build, and cost too much. And would be too unpopular with the electorate.

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193739#Comment_118193739

Aren't you the poster that's been banging on about "promising new technologies" like small/cheap reactors and such? So far, your chosen technology hasn't been developed either, and no, military reactors really don't count.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118187270#Comment_118187270

Kinetic energy is half the mass times velocity squared. Except in the case of wind or water the mass passing through is also proportional to the velocity. So the energy is proportional to the velocity to the power of three.

So you get lots more power from even a small increase in velocity, which is why sticking turbines on high towers into clean airflow is worth doing.

The downside is that you have engineer the structure to survive the energy of the maximum velocity cubed. Then there's rogue waves on top of that.

One reason why constant speeds are preferred is so you don't have to spend extra over-engineering the turbines. Turbines in the bogs in the midlands don't produce the same peak power as offshore, but they don't need to survive the same storms.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193892#Comment_118193892

In 2002 the price of an EPR was €2.5Bn with a build time of four years. That would be €3.3Bn today based on CPI and that EPR is still under construction in Finland. The interest on the loans have been accumulating for 20 years. The final cost is likely to be €19.1Bn

The most important figure for nuclear power isn't the upfront cost, it's the interest rate of the finance because of the predictable delays.

If you want nuclear power you should get a quote for a no-risk fixed price build including insurance and guarantees to cover delays and cost increases, and paying for alternative power if there's delays and possible site cleanup if the plant isn't completed all to be held in escrow in case the companies involved go bankrupt.

That way the market can decide how much nuclear power really costs.

Markcheese

I assume that going forward wind farm operators will be rewarded for consistency of supply onto the grid - which will encourage offshore - and grid level batteries -

There was a programe a couple of weeks ago on the complexity of adjusting individual turbines in a development to get optimum overall production in different wind conditions..

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118195843#Comment_118195843

Edf are covering the entire cost of construction and overruns for hinkley- they're only going to get paid for unit of power delivered - which is one of the reasons it's so expensive .. they're planning on being significantly cheaper on the next one in sizewell as long as they don't go bust first ... (A lower strike price agreed apparently)

dubhthach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118193514#Comment_118193514

I imagine the main point of landing for the windfarm that was proposed off Moneypoint was Moneypoint itself. You've got two major cross country powerlines that originate in Moneypoint:

Plus they are currently working on a cross-Shannon 400kv cable that got approved in June.

This ties in with the new Kilpaddoge – Knockanure Project which is an underground 220kv cable.

Sam Russell

I have tried to do some sums on my own domestic requirement for electricity.

I use less than 10kwh per day, and could probably put 4 kw PV on the roof and possible more but not optimised, and put a 10 kwh battery into the system that would control the electricity in the house. Now the daily consumption does not include gas used for cooking and heating. Now if that system could be put in place for €10 k to €15 k, it might give a payback of 7 to 10 years.

With the battery, I could reduce my consumption of electricity by 25% because of the PV, but the battery should allow me to reduce peak demand and use off peak electricity for most if not all my demand, so cutting my bills further.

Now there are 2 million homes in Ireland, so if 25% of homes could do the same, it would cost (500 k homes by €10 k) or €5 billion, paid by the home owner plus some from the public purse. With smart meters, and a feed in tariff, that could remove quite a bit of the uncertainty of the current grid. Now many homes could install a lot more PV, and would naturally reduce consumption by changing habits, and because they will be more aware of the consumption.

Am I wrong in my maths? And would this be a distributed solution to the vagaries of renewables? If generation is closer to the consumers, the grid is less stressed.

embraer170

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118196123#Comment_118196123

I wonder why the Kilpaddoge – Knockanure project was done underground?

machiavellianme

Probably because of the shortage of Overhead line routes. That area is already fairly criss crossed. It'll be interesting to see how they manage the different impedances in parallel leading to most of the power flowing on the cable.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118191718#Comment_118191718

No one's going to use fossil fuel to make hydrogen for the grid. It'll be renewables.

Yes the energy content per volume will go down, as methane has three times the energy per volume as hydrogen. So at 20% by volume it would be 12 parts energy from methane and 1 part from hydrogen. So 7.7% , but it's low hanging fruit and balances a decent chunk of the methane used to produce electricity.

Gas Networks Ireland set the conversion factor from m3 to Kwh based on the composition of the gas, local temperature and pressure etc. so consumers on this side of the pond shouldn't be charged extra if it's a little thin.

Ben D Bus

When people talk of the cost of green hydrogen, what are they using to calculate the cost? If not the marginal cost of using surplus green energy that would otherwise go to waste (or be curtailed by turning off turbines), then they're missing the point. That cost could actually be set at 0 if the windpower company is also the hydrogen generator.

So it's the capital cost plus operational cost of running a hydrolysis plant, albeit intermittently?