Would renewables ever provide Dublin's energy

Dublin isnt the most blessed with sources of renewable energy unless you want to include the hot air from Leinster house.

At the moment, the total capacity of the River Liffey generation is 38MW

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poulaphouca_Reservoir

If Ireland's peak demand is 5-6GW, then it's not unreasonable to estimate Dublin's share of that to be 2 GW.

Turlough Hill has a hydraulic head of 550m, Poulaphouca has 50m.

The Nowegians are currently building Hywind Tampen, with a brag of a 40% reduction in cost vs Hywind, but it's still costing about €10.5 Billion per GW factoring capacity factor. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffnt&q=norway+hywind+platforms&ia=web

High wind locations are unlikely to be ideal for the largest turbines available, quite the reverse.

Ireland has some the greatest wind resources on the planet, along with access to some of the biggest richest populations to sell green energy to!

Interconnectors and wind off the west cost and lots of it .. 10 times what we consume

Finance over 100 years with European central bank loans

Even the Germans look over in envy and want a slice : https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/germany-signals-interest-in-ireland-s-wind-energy-infrastructure-1.4813527

off shore wind all the way, off all coasts, on shore storage in the form of batteries and hydrogen, and intercontinental interconnects, job done!

i suspect its too low for modern needs, an amazing feet of engineering for its time, and the fact the country was beyond broke at the time of construction, but we ve moved on

Except it costs 4 times as much as alternatives in the long term. Job done only applies if you have an infinite supply of free money.

Na, he said they're dabbling a bit into hydrogen production as storage. But its very inefficient and you effectively lose 90% of the energy.

Doesn't sound like the answer to the problem just yet.

The usual idealistic Greenie nonsense. Wind power is getting so cheap it will end up being free - no it won't. Investors build wind farms and have contracts ensuring they get paid. Free isn't in their vocabulary. You want to know when the energy actually is free? It's when the wind isn't blowing, so you don't have to pay.

China has a wind capacity factor of a paltry 14.4%, which is why they are currently building 22 nuclear power plants and plans for a total of 140, and why they have plans to build 258 coal fired power plants.

They wouldn't be doing this if they thought they could get free energy from turbines.

Wind is not actually cheap, and China adding more 'capacity' than the rest of the world is misleading. Both of these are because of that tiny detail turbine shaggers always ignore and hope no one notices - capacity factor. China's average CF is terrible - 14.4% So for every headline grabbing GW they add, it's actually only 144 MW of actual power generated, which is why China is mostly building reliable high capacity factor nuclear and coal.

Renewables proponents always like to quote LCOE - which is a measure originally used for more reliable base load generation before renewables came along. LCOE applied to renewables is nothing short of dishonesty. The BBC are mad for this and are amongst the worst offenders.

When I say LCOE doesn't include capacity factor and is dishonest, I mean it doesn't factor the additional cost implications that arise from large differences in capacity factor between different sources, as is mentioned here:

If you want to choose between a nuclear power plant with a capacity factor of 100% that can service the entire grid demand and an energy system based on offshore wind farms that have a capacity factor of 50% and whose capacity is also 100% of grid demand, LCOE doesn't get even close to telling you the difference in cost between the two options, because it completely ignores and fails to cost the 50% of the time the offshore wind is not meeting demand and what it would cost you to fill that gaping hole. If you just look at LCOE, the windfarm option will look cheap and the nuclear will look expensive.

To match the nuclear option using offshore wind, you have to install 250% of Grid demand in terms of capacity, and you then have to add in the cost of an energy storage system big enough to handle at least a 6 week lul in the wind, in Irelands case. LCOE doesn't take that 250% capacity into account, nor the cost of the storage.

Maybe Ireland should cop onto itself and fix things. Take a look at the new Perth childrens hospital, and weep. After that, maybe try for a can do attitude instead of can't do.

The ESB has an uncosted plan, there's a video. Their estimate identifies a need for storage equivalent to 10,000 Turlough hills. EV batteries might cost a bit too much.

I know that this is a hobby for you, so this question might not be relevant, but what's your payback period on that setup?

My payback period is generally negative or very close to zero. As in I tend to buy parts so cheaply that I could sell them at any time for more than I paid for them. And I have done this repeatedly many times in the past. So that only leaves labour really. While I do almost everything myself or with (electrician) friends, I once paid a roofer €350 and I once paid an electrician €150 for doing jobs on my PV installs.