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Energy infrastructure

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    #782
    Carawaystick
    Registered Users Posts: 8,779 ✭✭✭Carawaystick


    bk wrote: »
    Much in the same way that the all Ireland grid is still separate from the UK grid, despite HVDC interconnectors between us.
    It's Britain that's seperate to Ireland, the North is part of the All Ireland grid


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    #783
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,510 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    Carawaystick wrote: »
    It's Britain that's seperate to Ireland, the North is part of the All Ireland grid

    Yes, I know, I should have said "Britain" rather then "UK" in my post, it would have been clearer then :)

    We and Northern Ireland are part of a single synchronous grid on the island of Ireland, with AC interconnectors between us. Our two interconnectors to Britain are HVDC and thus we aren't on the same synchronous grid as them, we just have the ability to import/export electricity to them.

    The point I was trying to make, is just because you have interconnectors between grids, like Norway and mainland Europe (Or Ireland and Britain), doesn't mean they are now the same grid, not if they are HVDC interconnectors.


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    #784
    tom1ie
    Registered Users Posts: 10,130 ✭✭✭✭tom1ie


    so is there anywhere on the coast of Europe that is within range of a HVDC cable, that isn't part of the same synchronous European grid that France and Spain are?


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    #785
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,510 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    tom1ie wrote: »
    so is there anywhere on the coast of Europe that is within range of a HVDC cable, that isn't part of the same synchronous European grid that France and Spain are?

    The Baltics and separately Russia do their own thing. Here are the separate synchronous grids of Europe:

    1024px-ElectricityUCTE.svg.png


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    #786
    dubhthach
    Registered Users Posts: 3,284 ✭✭✭dubhthach


    Technically the Baltics are synchronized with the Russian grid (Old Soviet Grid), they will be switching over to be part of the European grid from 2025

    Lietuvos_energetikos_ministerija.jpg


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    #787
    323
    Registered Users Posts: 1,135 ✭✭✭323


    gjim wrote: »
    I think you've a typo there? It's at least 10 times that distance before you break even in terms of cost/efficiency.



    No typo, but yes, when running HVDC overhead, something in the order of 600km far as remember.
    Quite a different story Subsea, where the HVAC/HVDC breakeven is in the order of about 50km.

    Hence all the HVDC tiebacks from offshore substations used to provide grid connections for the wind developers in Germany as they began to push further offshore a few years back.

    “Follow the trend lines, not the headlines,”



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    #788
    Apogee
    Registered Users Posts: 3,774 ✭✭✭Apogee


    Apogee wrote: »
    Whitegate out of action until June:
    https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/irish-electricity-system-under-too-much-pressure-for-comfort-1.4477399



    Now pushed back to December:
    Echo wrote:
    Speaking to the Echo, a Bord Gáis Energy spokesperson said: “We are working to return the power station to service as soon as possible. We have notified the market of our expectation to be offline until 31 December 2021.”
    https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/arid-40285553.html


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    #789
    cnocbui
    Registered Users Posts: 19,816 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    Just put some more solar panels and wind turbines up.


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    #790
    millb
    Registered Users Posts: 215 ✭✭millb


    Apogee wrote: »
    Now pushed back to December:

    https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/arid-40285553.html

    This sounds like a serious "fault" or "Incident" but very vague. I wonder was it mechanical or electrical - are there spares on order / is there contingency planning at the site?

    Where does Eirgrid post the Alert or detail? EG in December 2 of 3 Generators in Moneypoint were also down. Was there a virus like what put out some other energy control systems ? This happens in conflict zones.


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    #791
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,411 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    cnocbui wrote: »
    Just put some more solar panels and wind turbines up.

    Or introduce a feed-in tariff coupled by smart meters and local battery storage at the small industrial and domestic level.

    The ability to cut demand on demand will help in the no-wind high- demand intervals.


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    #792
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,510 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    This is an interesting point, people often talk about the unreliability of renewables, while not realising that traditional coal/gas power plants, along with Nuclear plants, can often suffer months if not years long outages.

    Just last year, Moneypoint was mostly offline for almost a year and now you see Whitegate suffering months long outages.

    This is why it is important to have a large degree of interconnection, both internally and with neighbouring countries and to have diverse sources of supply that can support one another. And yes, of course storage, smart meters, load shedding, etc.


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    #793
    antoinolachtnai
    Registered Users Posts: 9,774 ✭✭✭antoinolachtnai


    It is extremely unlikely that thermal plants across Britain and Ireland would all fail at the same time. But This is what can happen with wind.

    It is great to talk about demand response and it is important but how, realistically are you going to find even an extra gigawatt hour of demand response (a GWh is very little in the context of overall electricity demand, 12 minutes supply at peak time).

    There is a limit to the amount of interconnection that is realistically possible on Europe’s western seaboard.

    We need more renewables but we have to face up to the fact that there are very serious challenges involved.


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    #794
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,827 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    The other thing that's needed is to export or store or use surplus electricity,

    Electrolysis of water isn't a energy efficient, but it's low capital and scaleable and you can store it in the gas mains.

    Or ban solar from the grid to subsidise fossil plant , and yes you do need spinning reserve and big spinning things for localised grid stability.
    https://hackaday.com/2021/05/10/south-australia-vs-too-much-home-solar/


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    #795
    liamog
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Regional East Moderators Posts: 7,815 Mod ✭✭✭✭liamog


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    Or ban solar from the grid to subsidise fossil plant , and yes you do need spinning reserve and big spinning things for localised grid stability.

    Fast frequency response via spinning reserve has gone out of fashion now, much better to use a large battery to deliver the same service https://hackaday.com/2019/12/16/the-hornsdale-power-reserve-and-what-it-means-for-grid-battery-storage/


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    #796
    cnocbui
    Registered Users Posts: 19,816 ✭✭✭✭cnocbui


    liamog wrote: »
    Fast frequency response via spinning reserve has gone out of fashion now, much better to use a large battery to deliver the same service https://hackaday.com/2019/12/16/the-hornsdale-power-reserve-and-what-it-means-for-grid-battery-storage/

    Quite ironic, touting a big battery as a solution to a massive outage caused by an over reliance on renewables.


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    #797
    liamog
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Regional East Moderators Posts: 7,815 Mod ✭✭✭✭liamog


    cnocbui wrote: »
    Quite ironic, touting a big battery as a solution to a massive outage caused by an over reliance on renewables.

    Not quite sure I see the irony there, if you want fast frequency response having a quickly dispatchable source of power on the grid (such as Turlough Hill) is a pretty good solution. The Hornsdale Power Reserve has proven to be much quicker at providing this service than spinning generators.


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    #798
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,510 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    antoinolachtnai wrote: »
    It is extremely unlikely that thermal plants across Britain and Ireland would all fail at the same time. But This is what can happen with wind.

    Which is why UK and Ireland are building interconnectors to mainland Europe and Norway. You can always import the electricity when the wind stops blowing and of course export excess when we over produce.

    You can also use smart meters to curtail demand when needed. Batteries and hydrogen to store excess to be released when needed.

    And of course you can keep some natural gas plants around as backup to quickly come online if the wind is particularly low.

    Remeber the goal is 70% renewables by 2030, not 100%, that is very doable.

    Beyond that you could potentially use natural gas + CCS to get to 100% zero emissions.

    Though I'd prefer for us to get completely away from gas and perhaps build out massive over-provision of wind and solar + interconnection + hydrogen/batteries to avoid it as much as possible.


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    #799
    dubhthach
    Registered Users Posts: 3,284 ✭✭✭dubhthach


    cnocbui wrote: »
    Quite ironic, touting a big battery as a solution to a massive outage caused by an over reliance on renewables.

    Fast Frequency Response is more about mitigating short (seconds to under an hour) dips in the frequency of the grid. It's about maintaining the stability of transmission grid at specific frequency as oppose to mitigating major (day's long outage).

    In that scenario rapid dispatch battery that can respond in milliseconds to a frequency dip (last for example 60 seconds) are a god send.


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    #800
    gjim
    Registered Users Posts: 1,115 ✭✭✭gjim


    antoinolachtnai wrote: »
    It is extremely unlikely that thermal plants across Britain and Ireland would all fail at the same time. But This is what can happen with wind.
    That's exactly what happened in the Texas power crisis earlier this year - multiple failures of thermal generators (mostly gas but coal and nuclear were also affected) causing grid collapse. It didn't help that wind was also affected but more than 80% of the loss of generation was from thermal plant failure which was the main cause of the widespread outages.

    So I'd like to see some actual statistics and real world examples of how grids which depend more on wind and solar have more downtime before accepting this as a fact.

    This claim originated when there was very little no wind/solar deployed. But what has happened on the ground in the last decade has shown it to be false. A large number of countries use wind for more than 30% of electricity demand, Ireland is close to 50%, Denmark even higher, European average is about 33% - you'd imagine we'd be bombarded by news stories of power outages if wind were so destabalising and unreliable. But we're not - because the grid engineers, statisticians and weather modellers - seem to know what they're doing.


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    #801
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,411 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    Assuming that smart meters were installed, it might be economical for me to install a 10KWh battery and and a PV array use that setup to charge the battery on cheap power, but drop off when demanded. I think I use about 7 to 10 KWh per day. I reckon the cost of electricity would halve for me if I modified my consumption to suit.

    How many such installations would it take to solve the grid problem of no or little wind?


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    #802
    medoc
    Registered Users Posts: 967 ✭✭✭medoc


    Planning granted by Offaly County Council for a Biomas Gasification plant on the site of the old Rhode peat power station. Providing some sort of grid support services to help balance the renewals on the grid.

    https://www.offaly.ie/idocswebDPSS/listFiles.aspx?catalog=planning&id=20237

    https://www.offalyexpress.ie/news/home/632520/new-biomass-gasification-plant-set-to-be-constructed-in-offaly.html

    There’s also planning in progress for a battery storage facility from a separate company also on the old Rhode ESB site.


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    #803
    antoinolachtnai
    Registered Users Posts: 9,774 ✭✭✭antoinolachtnai


    gjim wrote: »
    That's exactly what happened in the Texas power crisis earlier this year - multiple failures of thermal generators (mostly gas but coal and nuclear were also affected) causing grid collapse. It didn't help that wind was also affected but more than 80% of the loss of generation was from thermal plant failure which was the main cause of the widespread outages.

    So I'd like to see some actual statistics and real world examples of how grids which depend more on wind and solar have more downtime before accepting this as a fact.

    This claim originated when there was very little no wind/solar deployed. But what has happened on the ground in the last decade has shown it to be false. A large number of countries use wind for more than 30% of electricity demand, Ireland is close to 50%, Denmark even higher, European average is about 33% - you'd imagine we'd be bombarded by news stories of power outages if wind were so destabalising and unreliable. But we're not - because the grid engineers, statisticians and weather modellers - seem to know what they're doing.

    The reason we don’t have outages is because every MW of wind is matched with a MW of other sources, mostly gas. We pay for this extra capacity in the unit charge on the electricity bill (in addition to paying to financially underpin wind and solar through the PSO).

    Just because a risk is being managed doesn’t mean it has gone away.

    Texas didn’t manage their risks. They didn’t weatherize and the gas grid ground to a halt as a result.

    We do have ‘red alerts’ and these have arisen because there is low wind in one part of the country. There is only so much transmission between regions, and between Ireland and elsewhere.


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    #804
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    antoinolachtnai wrote: »
    The reason we don’t have outages is because every MW of wind is matched with a MW of other sources, mostly gas. We pay for this extra capacity in the unit charge on the electricity bill (in addition to paying to financially underpin wind and solar through the PSO).

    Just because a risk is being managed doesn’t mean it has gone away.

    Texas didn’t manage their risks. They didn’t weatherize and the gas grid ground to a halt as a result.

    We do have ‘red alerts’ and these have arisen because there is low wind in one part of the country. There is only so much transmission between regions, and between Ireland and elsewhere.

    So more wind turbines is what you're saying, gotcha ;)

    In all seriousness though, there are risks with every type of power generation and where weather is a factor, there are no networks that are immune to downtime regardless of generation type i.e. if a line is cut by debris or a falling tree, it makes no odds whether the power going through it was generated by wind or coal. In the case of Texas, a lot of their issues came down to lack of investment in aging infrastructure which crashed when put under stress.


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    #805
    tom1ie
    Registered Users Posts: 10,130 ✭✭✭✭tom1ie


    [Deleted User] wrote: »
    So more wind turbines is what you're saying, gotcha ;)

    In all seriousness though, there are risks with every type of power generation and where weather is a factor, there are no networks that are immune to downtime regardless of generation type i.e. if a line is cut by debris or a falling tree, it makes no odds whether the power going through it was generated by wind or coal. In the case of Texas, a lot of their issues came down to lack of investment in aging infrastructure which crashed when put under stress.

    Is it also the case Texas is a standalone grid which doesn’t have any interconnectors with the other two grids in the USA? Either that or it has very low capacity interconnectors.


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    #806
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,827 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    tom1ie wrote: »
    Is it also the case Texas is a standalone grid which doesn’t have any interconnectors with the other two grids in the USA? Either that or it has very low capacity interconnectors.
    One city in the north west was linked to another gird and was OK.

    The reason the rest wasn't grid connected was because it wasn't up to spec. Irony was that if the local grid had been up to spec far more of it would have stayed up. IIRC stupid stuff like pumps failing in cold weather meant they couldn't use the gas power plants.

    And truly extortionate prices for electricity if you were on the wrong contract.


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    #807
    Banana Republic 1
    Registered Users Posts: 3,328 ✭✭✭Banana Republic 1


    tom1ie wrote: »
    Is it also the case Texas is a standalone grid which doesn’t have any interconnectors with the other two grids in the USA? Either that or it has very low capacity interconnectors.

    To avoid federal regulation that comes with state grid interconnection Texas chooses not to join. Essentially big oil and gas have e bribed Texas politicians to block any attempts to do this because there making to much money to risk the feds coming in.


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    #808
    tom1ie
    Registered Users Posts: 10,130 ✭✭✭✭tom1ie


    Banana Republic 1 wrote: »
    To avoid federal regulation that comes with state grid interconnection Texas chooses not to join. Essentially big oil and gas have e bribed Texas politicians to block any attempts to do this because there making to much money to risk the feds coming in.

    Wow. Does it look like anything will change there now that this setup has come to light?


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    #809
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    tom1ie wrote: »
    Wow. Does it look like anything will change there now that this setup has come to light?

    This is America we're talking about. Its FUBAR beyond belief in most regards


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    #810
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,827 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Deleted User wrote: »
    This is America we're talking about. Its FUBAR beyond belief in most regards
    Back in the day ENRON were exporting electricity from California on some links to create an artificial shortage. And then importing it on other links to enrich themselves.

    Buying and selling from themselves was one of the ways they used their license to print money.

    If you can control the terms and conditions then you can engineer situations where a reliable grid would reduce the times when you can screw the customer.

    A lot of the wildfires in the US were caused by poor maintenance of power lines. They let too much plant life grow too close to them.


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    #811
    Pete_Cavan
    Registered Users Posts: 6,741 ✭✭✭Pete_Cavan


    Eirgrid public consultation on plan to install 400 kV electricity cables across the Shannon from Moneypoint to Tarbert, presumably part of the sustainable hub plan?

    https://www.gov.ie/en/foreshore-notice/07fcb-eirgrid-plc/


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