Energy infrastructure

bk

"We and Europe (which throws interconnection argument in bin) now had yet another week of unusually low wind (and of course little sun this time of year)"

What are you talking about, other then yesterday, today and the last week has been lovely and sunny here in Dublin! Like, really, really nice weather for this time of year. I was only thinking that on these days a bit of solar would be a nice addition to the grid.

As for you keep posting every time that wind is low, it is completely pointless and silly.

As has been pointed out dozens of times already, there will be days like today with little wind, when we generate most of power with gas, etc.

It would be equally stupid if I came into this thread on every windy day and pointed out how much electricity was being generated on those days!

The important number you need to look at is the fuel mix over an annual basis. In 2020, renewables represented 43% of our electricity generation, up from 36% in 2019 and up from just 6% in 2005! The goal is for it to be 80% by 2030. The odd low wind day is unimportant in the larger scheme of things.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118473892#Comment_118473892

Luckily I have been planning to emigrate for some years, and the exit is now in sight.

Where you heading?

cnocbui

NZ. If the house prices go up another 30% before I leave, it might have to be Oz, but that's a 2nd prize I can live with.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118474040#Comment_118474040

NZ, a beautiful spot and one I hope to visit someday.

Incidentally, one of the greenest grids on the planet with all their hydro, geothermal and the big move into wind. They'll likely hit net zero before we do.

bk

And ironically New Zealand is another Nuclear free country and for much the same reasons as Ireland. A Nuclear Power plant would be too large for such a small country, a small island grid with no international interconnectors, too expensive and an abundance of renewable energy:

https://ecotricity.co.nz/why-nuclear-energy-isnt-an-option

It is brilliant that they have so much hydro, it is a real pity we don't have any more good hydro sites, but instead we have to lean into the resources we do have.

Beautiful country, I hope I get the chance to visit myself someday, would love to hike all over the country.

Busman Paddy Lasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118473997#Comment_118473997

Have been checking the Daily Solar Production thread and on days like these houses with about 5 to 6kWp are generating enough for 24 hours. Some feed batteries and some feed surplus to the grid. Roof space in this country is a huge potential for solar direct to the household without need for solar farms.

Gas infrastructure is not a bad thing either. Earlier in the thread, Hitachi and Mitsubishi are developing turbines for burning a hydrogen/natural gas mix. Dull overcast days could be all gas generation but 70% green hydrogen. Dispatchable wind power by proxy.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118473997#Comment_118473997

What is the efficiency of solar at this latitude during winter? Bad weather aside, it would be good to know just how efficient or not it actually is across the year when the sun IS shining

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475218#Comment_118475218

Sounds like we need more wind generation facilities to be honest

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475185#Comment_118475185

Not over a year it isn't, what is so hard to understand about that?

The goal is to greatly reduce the amount of carbon we produce over a year. Again the goal for 2030 is to be 80% renewable over a year. In 2030, there will be weeks like this one, where most of our power is produced by fossil fuels, those weeks will fall under the 20%. But there will also be weeks where we will produce over 100% of our power from renewables and they will vastly outnumber the poor weeks and thus fall under the 80%.

Again:

• 2005 6% renewables
• 2019 36% renewables
• 2020 43% renewables
• Goal for 2030 80% renewables

The trend is obvious and the move to renewables over the past 15 years has been tremendous, the 2030 goal looks quiet doable.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475319#Comment_118475319

Struggling to understand what point you are trying to make

You are saying we shouldn't invest invest in wind, solar, hydro, green hydrogen, storage tech etc because......???

bk

Sigh, annual greenhouse gas emissions intensity of electricity generation for 2019:

• Poland 751g CO2e/kWh
• Ireland 316g CO2e/kWh

That is basically the result of all the renewables (mostly wind) we have on the grid.

By 2030 that figure will drop below 100g CO2e/kWh as we hit 80% renewables in Ireland.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475218#Comment_118475218

Rather than cherry picking here's the last month in Germany.

Germany also has 20GW of interconnectors. They've 6GW of pumped storage with another 3GW over the border in Luxembourg, Switzerland and Austria for total of 8TWh of storage.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475319#Comment_118475319

Nuclear has not been very dependable in Germany so far this year.

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475319#Comment_118475319

Why are they different colours on the map then?

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475087#Comment_118475087

Technically they are more efficient because they are colder. Because of the time of year and latitude for optimum production the panels need to be more more vertical something like 60 degrees and harder to avoid shading other panels.

It depends on where you are too https://www.met.ie//climate/what-we-measure/sunshine

There's a lot more detail and tips over on the renewable energy forum

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475519#Comment_118475519

Again, annual greenhouse gas emissions intensity of electricity generation for 2019:

• Poland 751g CO2e/kWh
• Ireland 316g CO2e/kWh

BTW it dropped to 278g CO2e/kWh in 2020.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475519#Comment_118475519

Its dishonest to use a single data point as a basis for an argument, regardless of what your position on any topic is.

Feel free to throw up 3, 6, 12, 24 month comparisons but using a single moment in time just makes you look silly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475497#Comment_118475497

You object to Ireland spending money on power generation? You realise money has to be invested regardless of what the source is as there has to be and will always be, investment in energy generation and the grid. This has been true since power generation first began and will remain so.

Please outline what you think we should be doing instead.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475530#Comment_118475530

Theyre not more efficient though - they dont come as near to their rated capacity in winter, ergo they are less efficient.

I get what you're trying to say re: electronics and cold weather but it does not apply to any meaningful way. Otherwise winter time would produce the most power (it doesnt)

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475593#Comment_118475593

Might want to check your sums, that decimal point can be tricky

Again, I ask, please outline what you think we should be doing instead. Note, I am asking because you've brought little to this thread outside of bashing literally everything (as far as I can see) so I'm honestly curious as to what you think we should be doing.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475672#Comment_118475672

I wasn't referring to the cost element of your statement.

Again, I ask, please outline what you think we should be doing instead. Note, I am asking because you've brought little to this thread outside of bashing literally everything (as far as I can see) so I'm honestly curious as to what you think we should be doing.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475672#Comment_118475672

In 2020, wind produced 10.7 TWh of electricity.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475720#Comment_118475720

Hinkley Point C, 26 Billion (and rising) and we would need to build at least two of them, plus backup (Natural gas or interconnectors) + another 15 Billion (and rising) for Nuclear storage.

You'd be looking at 70 to 80 Billion to go all in on Nuclear power, at the very least.

Unfortunately there is nothing cheap about building new nuclear reactors.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475720#Comment_118475720

Forgetting for a second, the bonkers money need for nuclear, its insane waste problems, per current legislation it is not possible to build nuclear in Ireland.

Is that your only proposed solution or did you have more?

bk

"As opposed to spending 70-80 billion on wind and solar and having blackouts every time there’s no wind"

What are you talking about! Wind costs about 1BN per 1,000 MW. We will be adding about 5,000MW over the next 9 years, so about 5 to 6 Bn.

It will be backed up by our existing natural gas plants, so no lights will go out.

We will hit our 2030 goal, for less then one tenth the cost of your plan to use Nuclear (never mind operating and decommissioning costs).

Plus there is the issue, that it would be impossible to hit the 2030 goal with Nuclear even if we started today. Even if it all had the full support of the government and people of Ireland, it is taking 20 years to build new Nuclear plants and storage facilities. So you'd miss the goal by 10 years, best case scenario.

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475536#Comment_118475536

We're only two weeks into 2002 and nuclear had already dropped down to 66% and palming that off as a good thing ?

Nuclear is pimped as being a totally dependable workhorse. It isn't. It's a one trick pony (baseload) that can't even do that one trick dependably.

It's just another generator which has decent uptimes but also suffers from extended and unpredictable outages.

The issue isn't so much the MMTBF (mean time between failure) it's the MTTR (mean time to repair).

Even that wouldn't be an issue if it was random failures where having a few % extra plants would cover the downtimes rather than systematic failures* that can take chunks of a fleet offline at the same time.

And even that wouldn't be an issue if it was cheap or flexible enough. It's neither.

* fake parts, politics, cooling water issues, not winter proofed, floods, design flaws, bad welds, poor maintenance histories, historial tsunami, building on undetected earthquake faults, mandatory safety upgrades, etc. etc.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475827#Comment_118475827

Wait, so your only solution is the only one that can not be legally be used here, costs 10 times more and wouldn't be done in time to make any difference to our climate goals.

Wow, ok, well thanks for clarifying that. At least it makes it clearer as to how seriously to take your objections to the many other options being discussed in this thread.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118475871#Comment_118475871

The point about using singular data points as a basis for an argument slipped by you?

On a side note, as green hydrogen is getting a huge amount of investment and going through a lot of increased development, I've set up a thread specific to that topic. Feel free to pop in

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058228018/the-rise-of-green-hydrogen-in-a-global-and-irish-context

bk

"Which is the figure I used earlier in thread 1.225bln per 1000mw taken from a pro wind lobby site (conservative as earlier or remote installations might be more) this excludes costs of grids or storage too"

Nuclear needs a grid too and backup too, so those costs are about the same.

We have about 4,3000MW of wind power, so that would cost about 5.2Bn. Hinkley Point C is rated for 3,2000 MW and is costing 26Bn and rising, plus a nuclear waste storage site another 15BN.

Of course these are just up front capital costs, once built they would be spread over 40 years or more, then you need to take into account capacity factors, maintenance costs, decommissioning costs, etc.

"we installed 4300mw and only get 10% of today"

And China is currently getting 0% from it's new EPR reactor today and for the past 6 months!

We got 10.7TWh from our 5BN investment in 2020 and will continue to do so for the next 40 years or more. That is pretty great.

Even taking into account lower capacity factors of wind, it still works out much cheaper then Nuclear.

magicbastarder

is there any credibility in the sort of claims being made here? or should we expect any innovation in domestic generation using wind?

if this did what it says on the tin, it'd be very handy for someone like me who had a single storey garage at the side of the house, reasonably well exposed to south westerlies, i'd be able to put half a dozen of these there. i assume it's still inconsistent like solar, but at least has the capability of generating at night and wouldn't be as seasonal. though noise could be an issue in urban or suburban contexts.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/04/06/could-this-be-the-safest-most-powerful-wind-turbine-in-the-world

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118476192#Comment_118476192

Biggest issue in an urban context is noise and other buildings blocking the wind

This is a great video on the various types of "new" wind turbines that appear in the news from time to time

https://youtu.be/6vb18oXPli4