Irish grid fuel mix

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Almost Free electricity from grid?? (update: not at all).

unkel

@oaklands - "I did notice on my recent EI bill that 63% is now from renewable sources"

Don't believe all you read. Night rate electricity in Ireland is now about 50% renewable. But that's just 9 hours of night rate. Overall it's about 30-35%. That's for the whole country. Every individual household can be very different. In my case 98% of all the electricity I buy is from night rate and I produce and use even more myself from PV than I buy. So I am about 80% renewable for all electricity I use, but my systems are exceptionally big

L1011

It'll be 63% of what they bought, somewhere. Not even in Ireland. Until about a week ago this allowed providers to outright lie and tell you they were supplying you "100% green energy" based on what they were buying; even if that was nonsense and gave some people the idea that it was still green for them to whack on every appliance in the gaff at 5pm on a calm day because "I'm buying 100% green energy, so I am"

oaklands

Yes for EI it was actually 65.3% and 55.9% for the all Ireland market. The latter one is the important one, but still its a lot more than I thought & could be much higher & presumably includes SPV exports.

Just noticed the figures are for 2021 (Should be higher for 2022 etc ???)

unkel

Those figures are plain wrong. Ireland did not have 56% renewable electricity over 2021. I'd say it wasn't even anywhere near 35%.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120246499#Comment_120246499

Turns out it is! But coal is up to 6%, 2020 was 57%

(From the CRU)

unkel

Don't we have a thread about this were @KCross has kept track of the fuel mix for the last few years. Haven't seen it in a while but I thought night rate (with far higher renewable percentage than day rate) was only at about 50% now???

unkel

Yeah looks like the CRU is as utterly incompetent as most people think it is. Here is the most reliable source of data in Ireland, from the Central Statistics Office:

2019 37%

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-eii/environmentalindicatorsireland2021/energy/

2020 39%

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-eii/environmentalindicatorsireland2022/energy/

No figures for 2021 yet, but it simply is impossible to have jumped up from 39% to 55% in a year. You'd only get that if you commissioned a humongous wind farm. But that didn't happen, in fact there was barely any more wind installed during 2021. For shame

Source: SEAI:

https://www.seai.ie/publications/Energy-in-Ireland-2022.pdf

The only other two possible reasons are theoretical: Ireland's total electricity use went down by like 30-40% (yeah right) or there simply was twice as much wind that year as there normally is (yeah right)

So based on the given installed capacity a tiny bit higher in 2021 than in 2020, presumption that electricity consumption was also probably a tiny bit higher and the presumption that wind in 2021 was similar to 2020 and 2019, I estimate that electricity generation from renewable sources in 2021 was 39%

graememk

It's not even from the Cru, it's the grid operator (sem-o? ) That publish it... Unless one is counting something as renewable and not the other.

It's an all island not just the republic... But that wouldn't be near enough to skew it that much.

Why does it say 39% there and 42% here!?!

Private solar? Couldn't be that much can it?

Eirgird shows the fuel mix for the past month being about 37%..

Apparently the companies can't advertise 100% renewable anymore now though, someone took them to the advertising body.

But if we look on the fuel mix on our Energia bill, (for all Ireland) it's the same as what was posted here.... Statistics, can be manipulated to show anything.

unkel

"Eirgird shows the fuel mix for the past month being about 37%.."

And for the past year?

55% for 2021 is simply a lie. Unfortunately.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120246921#Comment_120246921

Only shows a month on the smart dash board

unkel

"Private solar? Couldn't be that much can it?"

Sorry missed that. Nah that would be tiny and mostly unmeasured as many people with private solar do not have smart meters so private solar just brings down their own (self use some) and the national consumption (export the rest)

A few percentage points could be hydro qualified differently in the different stats?

Anyway, 55% is a complete lie

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120245283#Comment_120245283

The advertising from the providers is misleading. That 56% renewable figure basically means that over the entire year, EI's fuel mix was 56% renewable. It doesn't mean the whole grid was 56% renewable.

They could have achieved that figure by buying credits from somewhere else. It just tells you where they source their energy from, which is a fraction of the overall grid. Thats all.

Some providers who invest only in renewables will claim 100% renewable in their literature. It doesn't mean you only get renewable electrons! It just means you are supporting a provider who only invests in renewables.

The grid overall is <40% renewable over the full year.

My thread on that topic is here:

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119932140#Comment_119932140

And it does show that average wind over the last 12 months (4-8am) is ~37%

unkel

@KCross - "The advertising from the providers is misleading. That 56% renewable figure basically means that over the entire year, EI's fuel mix was 56% renewable. "

I think you might have misread that. EI claimed their own supplied electricity was 65% but the entire market was 56%. We understand their own figure comes from buying credits. It's the overall percentage of 56% renewable electricity in Ireland that's disputed. By me anyway, some people here seem to just buy it, but it's a ludicrous figure, it's more like 39% unfortunately.

Or do you mean the entire market is buying credits from abroad so the total claim (after credits) is 56%? That would actually make sense. Total false advertising though if you ask me.

KCross

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120248453#Comment_120248453

Maybe I have. Im not saying I fully understand how they came to those numbers but anywhere a provider tells you they have a X% of renewable they are only talking about their own fuel mix based on credits... not the grid in total, so it could very well be what you have said in your last paragraph.

The bottomline is... the actual figure for the total grid is <40%, as you said.

crisco10

Without any data other than my experience, I'd assume Unkels hit on it. Both columns are the same "data" which includes credit trading for EI and for the market at large.

Agree, even throwing Turlough Hill in with wind, there ain't no way on an annual basis renewables are greater than 50%. From a wind perspective, 2022 was an OK to good year. But not record breaking.

Bif

For someone on a day/night meter does anyone have a figure for the overall renewable % of electricity production at night?

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120256219#Comment_120256219

This thread from kcross (click on the date to go to the thread)

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119932140#Comment_119932140

Jonathan

Split this out into its own thread.

Bif

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120256243#Comment_120256243

Thanks.

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120256219#Comment_120256219

And if you don't want to read the whole thread that @graememk linked to, it's currently about 50% renewables during night rate hours on average over the year. And 39% renewables overall