Energy infrastructure

Source: The Guardian https://share.google/WaAWWQWMyEvJKF2TL

Apparently considerably cheaper than new build gas (combined cycle ?? ) ... Although obviously if you built a GW of wind power , you'd likely have to build a GW of gas too ? ( Slightly cheaper open cycle ?? ) ,

but you'd likely need to do at least a portion of that backup for the new build gas too …

I passed a new solar farm outside kilmacthomas the other day. Cooltubrid it's called. I don't know if it has been connected to the grid as of yet but looking at it online they state it's 4.2MVA which is what 4MW? Then there's the monster solar farm on the copper coast. I think it's known as Rathnaskilloge. Not sure if that's operational yet but looks to be close.

There's another site outside tramore but not sure of its status.

EDIT: I see Rathnaskilloge solar farm connected to the grid just over 12 months ago.

Although they won't be operational in 2026 we're going to see a plethora of solar farms with BESS - of up to 5MW each - commencing once the private wire bill is enacted. Only this week was I looking up the ~1MW solar farm coca cola built outside Wexford town which connects directly into their adjacent plant. They are currently in the process of awaiting a decision from ACP to install BESS.

The capacity factor for solar in Ireland is 11%. Onshore wind is about 30%.

Interestingly, we now have some numbers out of the UAE for configuring solar as base load by adding battery storage, where the capacity factor for solar is 24%

The Masdar project consists of:

5.2 GW solar plant with a 19 GWh battery storage. The system aims to provide one gigawatt of continuous, “renewable” energy on a 24/7 basis.

So finally we have a costing for what it takes to make solar match a base load source where the capacity factor is more than double that in Ireland. $6 billion per GW. I haven't seen a cost breakdown, but if the batteries cost double what the panels did, then the cost of getting solar to base load standards in Ireland would likely be $8.36 B per GW for a system where the expensive bit would be unlikely to last more than 10 years.

So solar as base load for a 30 year system in Ireland might be around $16.36 B per GW, assuming 3 lots of batteries and the panels.

So much for solar being 'cheap' as is often claimed.

Turning intermittents into base load using energy storage, which is Ireland's intended method of achieving net zero, would be very, very expensive and foolish if batteries were used for the storage part.

Kind of running out of options here: hydrogen is a no go on several levels and the cheap storage battery myth has been exploded. We don't have the geography for pumped storage.

Where do you site them? France has great offshore wind resource in the Med but it gets steep quickly. There is only a small strip of exploitable Irish sea. Forget about the Atlantic.

Don't rely on interconnect from France as the most number of Datacentres in the world has been added there in the last year. They need their own electricity.

https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2026/01/24/la-france-est-le-pays-qui-a-recu-le-plus-dinvestissements-etrangers-pour-la-construction-de-centres-de-donnees-en-2025/

Our Minister seems to think that Ireland will be at the vanguard of a Hydrogen economy and is chairing some talking shop today.

https://amp.rte.ie/amp/1555045/

I am aware of the capacity factor of recent SOA UK offshore wind farms. East Anglia One is 46.8%. East Anglia TWO is costing £4 B for 960 MW, or £4.16 B GW. You are looking at north of £12 B per GW to get OSW plus BESS to replicate a base-load source, roughly, where the batteries will at best last 10 years. Oh, and add to that the minor inconvenience of OSW requiring 25-30% of the initial capital outlay in operation and maintenance costs over it's 30 year lifespan. So getting OSW to perform as baseload for 30 years using back of the napkin math works out at something like £23 B per GW - in the UK.

Do some research on the two floating offshore wind farms off Scotland - Hywind and Kincardine. They had great capacity factors of around 54% I think. However, the turbines couldn't take the punishment and didn't last 10 years before needing to be replaced. One turbine didn't last 2 years before needing to be towed back to the Netherlands, which is how all of them ended up.

Oh, and cost does matter. Kincardine cost £500m for 50 MW - that's £10 B per GW. Hywind Scotland cost £8.8 B per GW. These numbers ignore O&M costs that arose after construction.

This is relevant to Ireland because our west coast fixed offshore wind farms are predicted to have >50% capacity factors, which suggests wind and sea states comparable to the floaters. This suggests everything about them would cost more, from the foundations on up and the turbine longevity would be equally short.

As I have been saying for years, renewables are far more expensive than other zero CO2 options.

I'm all ears - how is Ireland going to get to net zero using wind and solar? The BESS component from the Dubai example seems very relevant to me, as it's real world and the first time I have seen renewables configured as a base-load replacement, which is exactly what Ireland has to do, given the stupid course it's set.