"Green" policies are destroying this country

It`s difficulty to know what the U.K. hopes to gain from that. Their own offshore wind generation costs, like everywhere else, saw huge increases in the last two years. Orsted walked away from a renewed contract for difference for Hornsea 4 of €98.04 per MWh because it was economically unviable, and the U.K. is a net importer of electricity. 2024 their net imports were 33 TWh, Our total consumption for the year.

Unless they are going to be selling us electricity from old wind farms that have lower contract for difference prices - which to depend on for us would increasingly become over a few years an example of the law of diminishing returns. Or ulternatively with the U.K. no longer a member of the E.U., they have spotted a gap where they can buy French nuclear or Norwegian hydro at a certain price - even though Norway are contemplating pulling the plug on that arrangement similar to what they are doing with Denmark due to them being drained like a battery when the wind does not blow resulting in large increases in the cost of electricity for their own users - and then resell it to us at a higher price.

If that is what the U.K. is planning for that interconnector then it is difficult to blame them. If you are a sucker then not getting an even break is nobody`s fault other than your own.

Perhaps, seeing as the U.K. has the same problem as Germany where wind generation is so far away from where their demand is, but it still is a crazy horse before the cart situation for the U.K. who are still handing out contracts for companies to generate in the North of Scotland when they do not have the grid to supply it where the demand is.

These curtailment payments for 2025 have cost the U.K. consumer £1.5 billion added to their electricity bills for electricity that they neither need or require. If they are intending selling this generation to us, then it would need to be from older wind farms with a lower contract for difference price than those they now have, or they are just dumping it for whatever they can get. Something that we would be well advised to look at under "caveat emptor" because it would be a short term remedy with no guarantee that it would be there in the future if we needed it.

Even then I don`t see how it would be going anywhere other than to Northern Ireland via the Moyle interconnector as they are paying these curtailments because their grid doesn`t appear to be able to transport it south to where the U.K./Republic interconnectors are.

There are days that if you didn`t laugh at some of the nonsense these renewable companies come up with that is then repeated by the media and politicians as gospel, you would cry.

How RTE can justify paying George Lee €200,000 a year will never cease to be a mystery.

He is an economist with a first-class honors degree in economics from University College Dublin, and an MSc in economics from The London School of Economics. He has been their correspondent on the environment for over 6 years and he still does not know how the price renewable companies receive for their contribution to the electricity generation mix. Renewable companies get first shot at how much they can supply and are not required to give a price. They price is determined by the price of the most expensive fossil fuel in that mix and that is the price the renewable companies receive. Even if the percentage of the fossil fuel is minute. That will apply to anything this company provides from batteries, and will not reduce the price of electricity by a single cent. It`s called the Marginal Pricing Policy and you would expect an environmental correspondent to know that never mind an economist with a first - class honors degree, plus a MSc in economics.

I actually laughed out loud at the current environmental Minister, Darragh O`Brien, on RTE news rabbiting on about clean energy with the Edenderry wood burning wood plant that burns 500,000 tons of wood a year with ships transporting wood from half way around the world to Foynes, and then by trucks 200Kms to Edenderry spewing smoke in the background.

Even green advocacy groups like Ember and the Natural Resources Defense Council regard wood burning for energy generation as more harmful to the environment than burning coal.

I will say one thing for these renewables companies, they are not short on neck.

Wind is intermittent. It is unreliable. It cannot be ramped up when required, so due to that and it`s capacity factor requires massive overbuild to supply peak demand. This proposed 37GW installed capacity offshore wind plan would deliver only 7.75GW of domestic demand and would cost €251 billion for just the wind farm costs alone at today`s prices, and that 7.75GW is only around half of what our projected demand for 2050 is. And that projection was before AI.

Even if it was in any way financially viable, it`s generation based on a capacity factor for offshore wind of 42% which falls flat on it`s face when we have long extended periods when our demand is at its highest where wind, not just here but all over Europe, drops to generating 5% or even less. These wind companies are now trying to turn the huge overbuilds into a virtue by selling the idea that if we throw further undefined "loadsamoney" for green hydrogen, batteries etc. their way they can fix that gap in generation by storing electricity that this overbuild generates when we do not need it.

Our current strike price for offshore electricity is just short of €100 per MWh. The current U.K. contract for difference price for green hydrogen is £241 per MWh (€276). For batteries to fill that gap, the ESB has been involved in battery storage for some time and I would tend to trust their figures more than some commercial enterprise attempting to sell their wares.

The ESB have 5 battery storage facilities which could provide 2 hours of electricity to 200,000 homes from an investment of €300 million. According to the latest census there are 2,129,590 homes in Ireland. To provide all households with just 2 hours of electricity from batteries would require an investment of €3.13 billion. Households consume 28% of our generation of electricity so to provide all our requirements for just 2 hours would require an investment of €11.14 billion. For a day, €134 billion and the same each day for those long extended periods when wind is providing next to nothing. And that is just at the current consumption level. Even disregarding AI that cost per day would more than double by 2050.

As I said, there is no shortage of neck when it comes to these renewable companies, but then if they can get us to buy into a totally financially unviable offshore hydrogen plan, it`s nobody`s fault other than our own that they are pushing the same financially unviable ideas on hydrogen and batteries to skim off as much as they can before the gravy train jumps the tracks and we go bankrupt.

Another case of RTE not so subtly pushing an agenda

The headline does not match what the protest is about, it’s against construction of a battery industrial park on a rural location, and RTE spin it as a protest against solar farm (which is already built there)

The protesters made that quite clear on the radio recently too.

Cab you expand more on the ratchet agreement.

I am not familiar with this?

I read it as 400MW more required in the long run's secure scenario

What conventional generation do they consider aging / retiring? Bare in mind this is an annual update and the original reference to aging / retiring was Aghada, Tarbert, Moneypoint (since extended to 2029) and Kilroot. All locations are in some way shape or form advancing with OCGT. Country is already on course to procure the 2030 target of 2GW new conventional generation.

Sure isn't that what UK is to do with their Eastern Green Link, 640km Subsea HVDC from Scotland to England.

Just to be clear, those forms of electricity won't become "more expensive" to produce. Our bizzare system means we pay every supplier the same price per kWh regardless of what it costs them to produce. It means that if the kWh cost of wind is 10c, Solar costs 16c and oil costs €3.50 we pay the wind and solar producers €3.50, even though oil is providing less than 3% of our fuel mix

This crazy system is the reason we paid so much for our electricity when Russia invaded Ukraine but instead of changing it our braindead government (which at the time included the greens) kept the status quo

The interconnector is meant to allow us to turn off production at Moneypoint. Whenever it comes along the benefits will be there from a climate perspective, but the costs will still be the same. Even if we went nuclear in the morning we'd probably still have that 0.0001% of oil or gas on our network that requires the maximum price to be paid

Unless you went 100% nuclear, which under our silly system it would actually make sense

Good luck with that one.