Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi all! We have been experiencing an issue on site where threads have been missing the latest postings. The platform host Vanilla are working on this issue. A workaround that has been used by some is to navigate back from 1 to 10+ pages to re-sync the thread and this will then show the latest posts. Thanks, Mike.
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

The Wind Energy Delusion

2»

Comments

  • #52
    Aidan1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 624 ✭✭✭Aidan1


    as Fast chargers in Ireland will be located at ESB Substations in Industrial Estates

    That's interesting. And untrue.


  • #53
    lucernarian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,235 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    Fast chargers will need phenomenal current flows to work (at least to charge those 100-mile type batteries within an hour.

    To charge the nissan leaf in an hour with a house's electricity supply would involve blowing the main fuse. Even to charge it in 4 hours instead of 8 would involve blowing the house fuse if you turn on the kettle while the fridge/freezer/TV/lights are on the go too. Electric showers would possibly be a no-no while the car is charging, even at the existing 8-hour current rating!


  • #54
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    Aidan1 wrote: »
    That's interesting. And untrue.

    It is true, here is the ESB Fast Charger Map...and note how elegantly they avoid motorway service areas :( They will put SLOW chargers on street and in MSAs ....not FAST chargers Aidan!!!

    esbfc.jpg


    http://www.esb.ie/main/press/press-release399.jsp
    Speaking at the launch of the charge points, Padraig McManus said ESB plans to build 3500 charge points by the end of 2011 – a total of 2000 domestic units and a further 1500 on-street charge points. Up to 30 fast chargers will also be installed by end of next year, he added.

    The street chargers are NOT fast chargers.

    Roughly how it works is:

    Battery running on fumes, need a full charge!

    1. A Light Home Charger charges AC to 100% at 13 Amps in around 14-16 hours. You may shower cook and vacumn as always.
    2. A Street Charger charges AC to 100% at 30-40 Amps within 8 Hours, longer at lower amps of course. If you install a similar Heavy Charger at home, you will need it wired to the fuse board with an interlock/combi trip to ensure the Cooker and Shower trips are isolated while you run the car charger. Same as having 2 electric showers installed but only one can run. You will need a Heavy Charger if you want to use night rate electricity only..and a night rate meter too.
    3. A Fast Charger charges to 80% using DC at high amps in 20 minutes. It could reach 100% in an hour but should get to the next charging point on 80% battery charge. In Cold weather you will need to charge in both Mullingar and Athlone if you want to get from Galway to Dublin thereby adding over an hour to the trip.

    See page 15 of this presentation by the ESB CTO himself :D

    http://download.intel.com/corporate/education/emea/event/irc/files/presentations/ireland/T4_SenanTMcGrath.pdf

    Having said all that I would change our building regulations wiring specs right now to ensure that a length of cooker wire is run from the Fuse Board to the front door....for future electric car charging and that the fuseboard is big enough for Interlocks . We don't want a repeat of the comms ducting ballsup of the last decade :(


  • #55
    lucernarian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,235 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    Bit optimistic there SB, you quoted it yourself:
    The Leaf can be fully recharged from empty in 8 hours from a 220/240-volt 30 amp supply

    Using a 13A socket will give you over double that time naturally.


  • #56
    Carawaystick
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,779 ✭✭✭Carawaystick


    Sponge Bob wrote: »
    It is true, here is the ESB Fast Charger Map...and note how elegantly they avoid motorway service areas :(
    First thing that jumped out at me in the map; facepalm territory
    Sponge Bob wrote: »
    2. A Street Charger charges AC to 100% at 30-40 Amps within 8 Hours, longer at lower amps of course. If you install a similar Heavy Charger at home, you will need it wired to the fuse board with an interlock/combi trip to ensure the Cooker and Shower trips are isolated while you run the car charger. Same as having 2 electric showers installed but only one can run. You will need a Heavy Charger if you want to use night rate electricity only..and a night rate meter too.
    Contrary to popular belief, modern electric ovens are low current devices, many have a 13A plug, while others with the heavy duty connection have a max power rating of 2200W, much less than a kettle of 3kW kettle(13A @240V)

    The register had a good article last week with a paper from the John Muir Trust( who are anti- wind, but the paper shows where they get their data from)
    From Nov08 til Dec10, the average wind capacity to wind generation in Britain's grid was about 25%. The usual number bandied about is 30% capacity, so this makes wind even less of a runner. Bearing in mind there's a much larger geographical spread of wind farms connected to the british Grid than here.


  • #57
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    Speaking of the Reg and generation stats.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/21/wind_turbines_too_close_together/
    The latest wind farms now going into service use huge turbines with rotor diameters in the 100m range, expected to offer large outputs. But according to engineering professor and fluid dynamics expert Charles Meneveau of Johns Hopkins University, there's a problem.

    “The early experience is that they are producing less power than expected,” says Meneveau. “Some of these projects are underperforming.”

    The prof, who has investigated air flow in wind farms for years, looked into the matter of the underperforming monster turbines along with Johan Meyers of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium.

    “I believe our results are quite robust,” says Meneveau. “They indicate that large wind farm operators are going to have to space their turbines farther apart.”

    Big turbines are at the moment generally installed about seven rotor diameters apart, but Meneveau and Meyers say that the optimum spacing is actually 15 diameters, slightly more than twice as far apart.

    If this plan were followed, a wind farm covering a given area would only be able to install a quarter of the number of turbines it could have under today's planning assumptions. Though the amount of energy generated per turbine would be the best possible, it seems unlikely that such efficiency gains could possibly compensate for the cut in numbers.

    On the other hand, if windfarms continue to be constructed with turbines crowded more closely together, they will continue to produce less electricity than their builders had expected.

    This 'too close' problem is called Wake Effect, from HERE I got a nice photo and that link posits a 20% drop from optimal from spacing based on that particular wind farm in the photo.

    horns_rev.jpg


  • #58
    dynamick
    Closed Accounts Posts: 724 ✭✭✭dynamick


    Sponge Bob wrote: »
    It is true, here is the ESB Fast Charger Map...and note how elegantly they avoid motorway service areas :( They will put SLOW chargers on street and in MSAs ....not FAST chargers Aidan!!!
    ESB's site says:
    ESB wrote:
    Fast charge points will be located at service stations and roadside cafés to cater for those on longer journeys. An 80% full charge can be achieved in 20-25 minutes
    http://www.esb.ie/main/ecars/e-charging/charging-an-ecar.jsp

    I don't think that any fast charging point have yet been deployed by the ESB.

    Electric cars with the current range are unsuitable for Irish people with regular need for intercity travel. Person living in Dublin who does a handful of ex-Dublin trips a year might go for it.


  • #59
    KevR
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,110 ✭✭✭KevR


    RT&#201 wrote: »
    ESRI wants energy subsidies curbed

    Updated: 13:53, Wednesday, 27 April 2011
    A review of energy policy calls for an end to subsidies for offshore wind and wave electricity generators, and a curbing of subsidies for onshore wind turbines.
    0004074c-314.jpg

    The review by the Economic and Social Research Institute also calls for gas from the Corrib field in Co Mayo to be brought ashore urgently, to bolster energy security.

    The recession has reduced demand for energy in Ireland, and increased the need to reduce energy costs to Irish businesses and homes.

    Coupled with the higher cost of capital due to the perceived risk of investing in Ireland, the ESRI says energy-related spending plans should be reviewed and policies changed.

    It calls for the scrapping of subsidies to offshore wind and wave power installations, saying they could impose high costs on Irish consumers with no environmental benefit.

    Onshore wind turbines can provide the energy needed, and can be justified as a hedge against high gas prices, it adds.

    The review says the climate change bill could have imposed high costs on the Irish economy without environmental gains, and says future climate change policy must minimise the cost of compliance.

    It also says Ireland's electricity supply is at risk because almost all natural gas - which fuels 57% of the State's power stations - comes through a single pipeline from Scotland.

    To overcome this vulnerability, the State either needs to invest in a second gas interconnector, or move urgently to ensure that Shell brings the Corrib gas field into production, the ESRI argues.

    This would provide the State with two sources of gas supply for the next five years, at no cost to the taxpayer, it says.
    http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0427/energy.html


  • #60
    luohaoran
    Registered Users Posts: 86 ✭✭luohaoran


    Sponge Bob wrote: »
    That would be the Wind - Hydrogen model. Explained rather well here (storage issues aside) . That presentation BTW dates from the hydrogen car days, we seem to have gone off that idea in the past 5 years :)

    While I do not recall any Wind - Hydrogen discussions or proposals in Ireland I must say that is understandable after the palaver in Rossport in recent years :)

    Hydrogen is not dead and burried yet.

    Here is a company that won the shell springboard award, thus credible.
    They have come up with a way to store hydrogen at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, which when heated, releases the hydrogen.
    Can be mixed with current fuels to work in standard combustion engines, or with some modification to the engine, it can burn pure hydrogen.
    (I'm guessing the modification would be to put a heater in the tank, and deal with any residue perhaps.)

    They do say, however, they are working with new formulas to reduce the cost of the current material, to make it scalable, but it seems reasonable to think they might succeed , and soon enough.

    They boast/anticipate the final cost of the fuel will be of the order of one third of that of the net cost for petrol/diesel.

    So if they do what the say they can, its game on for hydrogen, and thus good news for wind.


  • Advertisement
  • #61
    Aidan1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 624 ✭✭✭Aidan1


    Fast chargers in Ireland will be located at ESB Substations in Industrial Estates

    Again, entirely untrue.

    From today's IT;


    Electric cars to recharge at petrol stations
    RECHARGING STATIONS with the capacity to power up an electric car’s battery from zero to 80 per cent in 30 minutes, giving it a range of more than 100km (60 miles) will start appearing on forecourts next month.

    ESB eCars yesterday announced details of agreements with Topaz, the Maxol Group and Lidon which will see a number of fast-charge points installed in service stations along inter-urban routes. Drivers will be able give their cars a charge of 80 per cent for about €6. A home charge, at night, will cost half that.

    The company is hoping the charging stations will help people overcome “range anxiety”, a major stumbling block for electric cars to date. The stations will allow motorists drive across the State with just one recharge.

    The first fast-charge points will be operational in Topaz stations in Monaghan and Cashel, followed shortly afterwards by Cork, Athlone and Cavan. Standard charge points will also be installed at these locations.

    The first Maxol service stations to get a fast-charge point will be in Navan, Co Meath, while Lidon Limited, which trades as Junction 14, will install fast- and standard-charge points on the new motorway service area on the M7 at Monasterevin by June.

    Some 30 fast-charge points will be installed at stations by the end of 2011. ESB eCars says the development “marks a major milestone in promoting the wider adoption of electric cars in Ireland”.

    ESB eCars also has plans for 1,500 public-charge points and 2,000 home units, depending on the take-up rate. The Government wants to see about 250,000 electric cars on Irish roads within a decade and has plans for 6,000 by the end of next year.

    Last week, a grant scheme for buyers of electric vehicles was approved by Minister for Energy Pat Rabbitte. All vehicles with CO2 emissions under 75g per km will be eligible for a purchase subsidy of up to €5,000. The department said it would also apply to all eligible vehicles sold between January 1st and the start of the scheme. Figures show no new electric vehicles were put on the road during this period.

    ESB chief executive Pádraig McManus said that in spite of the slow take-up, the introduction of fast-charge points “represents a big step forward”. He said they “will help to reassure drivers that longer journeys between urban centres are practical”.

    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0429/1224295674085.html


  • #62
    dynamick
    Closed Accounts Posts: 724 ✭✭✭dynamick


    They are limiting the number of grants for electric cars to the first 1,000 vehicles at a cost of €5m. Previously the intention had been to grant aid 6,000 vehicles at a cost of €30m.
    Whether 6,000 people would have bought electric cars is another question.


  • #63
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    That ESRI paper was Verrrry odd to my mind. It appears to have been rush released in response to a particular request from an unknown quarter.

    The fact that the Ballylongford LNG Terminal in North Kerry was completely discounted from the gas 'mix' was peculiar to say the least.


  • #64
    lucernarian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,235 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    That LNG terminal website hasn't been updated in quite a while. Is there any progress with this terminal currently?

    Am I right in saying that there is no proper LNG terminal on this island?


  • #65
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    Yep, apart from a few Calor Kosangas tanks. I don't understand why ESRI did not wait for the Binding Capacity requests process for Shannon LNG shipments to complete...as in precisely today the 29th I believe.


  • #66
    ei.sdraob
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,376 ✭✭✭ei.sdraob


    good article here > http://joewheatley.net/bad-power/

    putting a stake thru the heart of several claims we hear about wind power in Ireland


  • Advertisement
  • #67
    patgill
    Registered Users Posts: 131 ✭✭patgill


    Interesting thread gent's.

    Particularly in respect of the amount of ideology displayed.

    Heorditas, I just love that Steorn of Ireland label :):)

    There were one or two opinions that the market will provide a short, medium and long term solution, maybe it will, perhaps it already is, what is certain is that the market can always be gamed by operators with deep pockets.

    What is in no doubt is that the grid operators and institutional investors like wind to have storage alongside it, removing any need for feed in tariffs or priority dispatch in order to be profitable and thereby providing long term transparency and market certainty.

    Dinorwig was built with taxpayers money (UK Grid) to balance nuclear, sold at a loss by Margaret Thatchers political ideology and is now rented back by the taxpayer (UK Grid) to balance nuclear, gas and renewables, switching between pumping and generating up to 100 times a day, it provides a balancing swing of 3GW in 100MW per second steps, which no thermal plant could ever hope to match in its designers wildest fantasy.
    And it performs this service cheaper than any other technology in existence today or imagined in the future, yet its owners still manage to earn gross returns approaching £100 a year, the market loves it.

    Every single time Ireland has put most of its eggs in the one basket it has resulted in disaster, from the potato famine to the celtic fools dependency on property.

    A sensible energy policy would be to provide for Ireland's domestic needs from a diverse mix, with no ideology, and facilitate an export industry to develop provided it does not require subsidy.


  • #68
    treefan
    Registered Users Posts: 39 ✭treefan


    don't really understand all this anti wind energy sentiment when our neighbours are proving the argument by making it a part of their integral energy mix:

    http://www.earthtechling.com/2011/11/u-k-wind-farm-rising-in-record-speed/

    Ireland's got the best wind resource in Europe. Why cant we properly exploit it, create jobs and get us weaned off 90% oil imports?


  • #69
    LaFlammeRouge
    Closed Accounts Posts: 177 ✭✭LaFlammeRouge


    treefan wrote: »
    don't really understand all this anti wind energy sentiment when our neighbours are proving the argument by making it a part of their integral energy mix:

    http://www.earthtechling.com/2011/11/u-k-wind-farm-rising-in-record-speed/

    Ireland's got the best wind resource in Europe. Why cant we properly exploit it, create jobs and get us weaned off 90% oil imports?

    Jobs? There is no jobs in wind energy. Just handouts.


    For example the company in your link:
    ONE of the companies building a windfarm off the Furness coast is netting more cash from the government than any other in the UK.


    INVESTMENT: Turbines erected for Walney 1 of Dong’s Walney Offshore Windfarms project Dong Energy, which is behind the Walney Windfarm, has a large stake in three offshore developments that will net the Danish firm more than £98m in subsidies. Dong also has a 50 per cent share in a 175-turbine farm at London Array.

    http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/energy-firm-tops-cash-subsidies-list-1.880542?referrerPath=news/

    Wind companies can quote installed capacity all they want. It is pure fantasy. What will create jobs is cheap, reliable energy provided by gas. Not focking wind power.


  • #70
    dowlingm
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,337 ✭✭✭dowlingm


    One small point about The Register - they're great on IT but on other technologies they are a bit out there, they like to play up climate change denial related stories and are almost in Walter Mitty territory on matters military.

    Wind has a lot of problems (and I've highlighted some on the SoI thread) but some of the opposition to it gets loopy in places too.


  • #71
    Carawaystick
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,779 ✭✭✭Carawaystick


    treefan wrote: »
    don't really understand all this anti wind energy sentiment
    Why cant we properly exploit it, create jobs and get us weaned off 90% oil imports?

    What do you suggest we do when the wind don't blow?
    It is likely that there will be almost no wind for several days right around the time of the maximum annual demand for electricity, later this month. What do you suggest we do then?

    All the installed wind power in the world is useless without any wind to blow it. A recent study over about 14 months in Britain showed the actual generation in Britain was about 25% of the installed capacity, where it had been assumed it was 33%.


    Regarding Oil, No one touting electric cars has been able to quote the range of one in -10 degrees while heating the interior to +20 degrees; the energy density is just not there for batteries.


  • Advertisement
  • #72
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    I don't think this project has its very own thread but it was refereced in this one.

    http://www.independent.ie/national-news/gas-refinery-under-threat-as-suppliers-reject-charges-3210227.html
    Sunday August 26 2012
    TALKS will start next month to resolve a row about multimillion-euro charges imposed on energy suppliers, which have been blamed for jeopardising a planned gas refinery in Kerry.
    The row centres on the Commission for Energy Regulation's (CER) ruling that gas providers should pay for the rising costs of two interconnectors linking Britain's and Ireland's gas supplies.
    One firm, Shannon LNG, has said it won't be using the interconnector and shouldn't have to pay for it. The company, which is backed by the global corporation Hess LNG, plans to ship liquified gas by sea to Tarbert, where it will be processed for the domestic market in a €600m plant.

    However!!
    As Ireland starts producing gas -- from the Corrib gas field and suppliers like Shannon LNG -- the interconnectors will be used less and the cost of maintaining them will increase.


  • #73
    patgill
    Registered Users Posts: 131 ✭✭patgill


    Interesting post Sponge Bob, which raises the following question.

    Should Irish consumers be asked to subsidise gas interconnectors if they are used for exporting gas rather than importing gas ?

    The regulator in its ruling on this matter seems to suggest that all users of the gas interconnectors should contribute to these costs irrespective of the direction of gas flow, these will be pass through costs for the gas companies and so consumers wallets will ultimately pay.

    Will ideology change simply because we are discussing a different technology here ?


  • #74
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    patgill wrote: »
    The regulator in its ruling on this matter seems to suggest that all users of the gas interconnectors should contribute to these costs irrespective of the direction of gas flow, these will be pass through costs for the gas companies and so consumers wallets will ultimately pay.

    Difference with electricity is that there would be no Bord Gáis ( nothing to sell in effect) had the 2 Gas interconnectors not been built 10 or more years ago.

    Electricity interconnectors post date 'competition' unlike gas interconnectors.


  • #75
    Idbatterim
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,854 ✭✭✭✭Idbatterim


    why is wood not used as a fuel in power plants as opposed to say coal etc?


  • #76
    Carawaystick
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,779 ✭✭✭Carawaystick


    Idbatterim wrote: »
    why is wood not used as a fuel in power plants as opposed to say coal etc?
    I'd say cost, energy density, and the need to season it, would require large storage areas
    There was talk of BnaM growing willow on their cut out bogs to supply a mix for the turf burning stations, dunno how that got on

    There is probably not enough land suitable for growing wood to supply enough stations, northern latitudes have fairly slow growing softwoods, it was a bit warmer back when the vegetation that became coal was growing
    Tropical woods contain a lot of the nutrients in the biomass, so harvesting them removes the fertility, so sustainable wood can't be harvested from there either


  • #77
    101sean
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,884 ✭✭✭101sean


    Biomass use is on the increase in the UK. Drax, which is the biggest coal station, is supposed to be changing over to it and rail wagons are being built to transport it. Not entirely sure what biomass comprises though?


  • #78
    Markcheese
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,577 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    Apparently drax is Converting 2 or 3 of it's 5 turbines to biomass.. Mostly imported forestry waste (what ever that is ), assume it means wood chipping an old growth forest somewhere.... It's on BBC news website .... Think it's a government subsidy thing too...

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



  • #79
    LeHbob
    Registered Users Posts: 6 ✭LeHbob


    Fascinating reading through this thread 7 years after it was last commented on. Interesting to see how critical the topics raised are now compared to how they were viewed when this thread was last active.


  • #80
    luohaoran
    Registered Users Posts: 86 ✭✭luohaoran


    Remarkable how little direction has been shown by government in this whole area. I've a lot of faith in Bruton to get things moving again though, he's had a meaningful impact in every department he's held for the last number of years. If he can just deliver micro generation feed in, we'll sort ourselves out.

    One argument that I always felt was underdeveloped in any of these "new energy" threads is the impact of having the money we pay for our energy circulating "inside" the Irish economy rather than sent away to fossil fuel exporters.
    You can tolerate a lot of extra cost and inefficiency if the money stays in Ireland. You'll get its value back through tax several times over as it circulates.
    But oil/gas money is gone and stays gone. The net cost is actually multiples of the gross cost in this instance.

    Never seen any attempt to factor that into the viability of Wind/wave/hydro/storage.


  • #81
    marno21
    Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 14,461 Mod ✭✭✭✭marno21


    Links in the OP have gone dead. Here are the working ones

    https://web.archive.org/web/20110310171827/http://iae.ie/site_media/pressroom/documents/2011/Feb/28/IAE_Energy_Report_Web_17.02.2011.pdf

    https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/ireland-s-big-hope-or-just-hot-air-1.582301


  • Advertisement
  • #82
    LeHbob
    Registered Users Posts: 6 ✭LeHbob


    Years ago I thought the future would be colossal offshore wind farms of the western coast to supply Ireland and Europe that wouldn't impact the arable land and have more consistent wind. I still think it would be the best solution along with solar, PV and energy use reduction.


  • #83
    Markcheese
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,577 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    LeHbob wrote: »
    Years ago I thought the future would be colossal offshore wind farms of the western coast to supply Ireland and Europe that wouldn't impact the arable land and have more consistent wind. I still think it would be the best solution along with solar, PV and energy use reduction.

    Well the brits are really bringing down the cost of offshore wind... (not sure if that's sea bed condition dependant or not),

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



  • #84
    LeHbob
    Registered Users Posts: 6 ✭LeHbob


    Markcheese wrote: »
    Well the brits are really bringing down the cost of offshore wind... (not sure if that's sea bed condition dependant or not),

    What are they doing that is bringing down the price?


  • #85
    Markcheese
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,577 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/11/biggest-offshore-windfarm-to-start-uk-supply-this-week

    I think its scale that's driving this...

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



  • #86
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    LeHbob wrote: »
    What are they doing that is bringing down the price?

    Mainly buying on a large scale it seems. https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/energy-firms-plan-to-invest-billions-in-irish-sea-wind-projects-1.3871443

    It looks like we are increasing scale too


  • #87
    Muahahaha
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,688 ✭✭✭✭Muahahaha


    That is some huge windfarm project in the UK, 408sqm of sea covered in turbines. Anyone know how that might work for marine traffic, are they allowed to sail though the windfarm or would they have to avoid it?

    Also when they measure turbines in MW does that refer to a MW generated per hour of sufficient wind? And what minimum kph of wind is needed to drive them at full efficiency?


  • #88
    Marcusm
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,441 ✭✭✭✭Marcusm


    Muahahaha wrote: »
    That is some huge windfarm project in the UK, 408sqm of sea covered in turbines. Anyone know how that might work for marine traffic, are they allowed to sail though the windfarm or would they have to avoid it?

    Also when they measure turbines in MW does that refer to a MW generated per hour of sufficient wind? And what minimum kph of wind is needed to drive them at full efficiency?

    I think a lot of them are on sandbars so not deep enough for large ships anyway. If the floating/tethered one’s take off I imagine there would have to be some exclusion zone.


  • #89
    Pete_Cavan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,043 ✭✭✭Pete_Cavan


    Has there been any serious proposals to build wind farms on any of our uninhabited islands? Would seem like the easiest way to build off shore.


  • #90
    loyatemu
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,112 ✭✭✭✭loyatemu


    Pete_Cavan wrote: »
    Has there been any serious proposals to build wind farms on any of our uninhabited islands? Would seem like the easiest way to build off shore.

    they're mostly pretty small, and some of the larger ones are in touristy areas which probably wouldn't get planning (e.g Great Blasket).


  • Advertisement
  • #91
    Markcheese
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,577 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    I suppose there'd be fairly serious cost in getting the wind turbine and its foundations onto an island (without a pier), then there's the fact that many islands are bird sanctuaries, so the foundation isn't great for nesting birds and the blade isn't great in the middle of a load of flying birds...

    I assume there aren't that many sand banks and shallows off the west coast, (the wave height mightn't help either)

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



Advertisement