Energy infrastructure

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.

[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.

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/

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

live info

https://www.eirgridgroup.com/how-the-grid-works/system-information/
https://www.smartgriddashboard.com/#all

IIRC you might as well divert extra energy to heat water here because of the fees and rates and connection charges , unless you have a very large setup.

bk wrote: »

A pretty impressive 43% in 2020:
http://www.eirgridgroup.com/newsroom/electricity-consumption-f/index.xml

Thanks both, great progress being made. Those links are fascinating, today in particular, renewables (wind primarily) are responsible for the majority of energy production today, at certain points reaching 85% of demand. Incredible

Sam Russell wrote: »

Can households sell power back to the grid? I thought they could only donate it.

We need smart meters and a feed-in tariff.

Perhaps I am jumping a few years into the future, I thought it was already the case but perhaps not in Ireland.

The Commission for Regulation of Utilities has just published a tender for Consultancy Support for Development of a Smart Meter Data Access Code;

https://irl.eu-supply.com/ctm/Supplier/PublicPurchase/189617/0/0?returnUrl=ctm/Supplier/publictenders&b=ETENDERS_SIMPLE

From the accompanying document;

1.1 The Contracting Authority invites Tenders in response to this RFT from Tenderers for the provision of the Services as described in Appendix 1 to this RFT. In summary, the Services comprise consultancy support for the development of a smart meter data access code for the Irish retail electricity market. Smart meters for electricity are currently being rolled out across Ireland. These meters can collect and transmit granular information on electricity consumption which will enable the distribution system operator to provide better system services and suppliers to offer smart services to customers like time-of-use tariffs. The smart meter data access code will be a key instrument for the Contracting Authority in setting the rules around access to smart meter data of the final customer by the distribution system operator, the suppliers, and other eligible parties. The Contracting Authority is seeking consultancy support for drafting this code and engaging with stakeholders regarding the delivery of this project. The open procedure is being used for this Competition.

Ireland’s first green hydrogen facility is planned for Cork Harbour
https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/companies/arid-40297886.html

Plans have been announced for Ireland's first green hydrogen facility that will be located in Cork Harbour.

Green energy firm EI-H2 intends to seek planning permission for a 50MW electrolysis plant in Aghada, County Cork, which when operational will remove 63,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually from Irish industry and power generation.

Upon completion, the site will be one of the biggest green energy facilities of its kind in the world. EI-H2 is to commence an intensive round of pre-planning discussions with Cork County Council, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications and other parties ahead of the formal lodging of planning permission later this year.

...

1huge1 wrote: »

From my understanding, one of the big benefits of this is that it will remove some excess production from the system, e.g. wind turbines running during the night when demand is low?

Well it makes wind farms more economically viable form an investment point of view. At the moment if you finance a Wind farm you have to factor into the financing costs that there's gonna be set amount of time when even though you can produce electricity that's there is no demand from the grid.

In such scenarios if there are alternative means to soak up usage (Hydrogen production) that hedges this issue.

Also of course it helps to decarbonise other sectors such as for example Ammonia production which would help with decarbonising Fertiliser production (remove need to use Natural Gas)



"Green Ammonia" is been pushed as potential way to decarbonise global Shipping as well. See articles here:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/marine/why-the-shipping-industry-is-betting-big-on-ammonia



Potentially if 'Green Hydrogen'/'Green Ammonia' production is economically viable in Ireland it could result in a possibility of been an energy exporter in that regard.

There's also work going on with using Ammonia in powerstations, which could be useful for peaker plants (replacing Natural Gas plants). Mitsubishi Power have developed a 40MW Ammonia powered Turbine.

https://www.powermag.com/mitsubishi-power-developing-100-ammonia-capable-gas-turbine/

If you look at recent planning permissions for Data Centers that require onsite power generation they are generally in this class. For example the recent permission that Microsoft got out in Grangecastle:
http://www.sdublincoco.ie/Planning/Details?p=1&r=SD21A%2F0042&l=grange%20castle%20data%20centres&prop=data%20centre&regref=SD21A%2F0042

Of course there is also work ongoing with converting Natural Gas plants to purely Hydrogen, like for example this one in the Netherlands:

1. Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (MHPS) is supporting the Carbon-Free Gas Power project at Vattenfall’s Magnum power plant in the Netherlands. The project aims to convert one of the three 440-MW combined cycle gas turbines to operate on 100% hydrogen, which will significantly reduce CO2 emissions.

Having something like that as an option would allow us to hedge power generation to cover scenarios when wind production is low (we also need to ramp us Solar for same reason)

Sam Russell wrote: »

Both are needed. There is no point in feeding in if the grid is in surplus.

Battery grants cost the state, feed in tariffs would be a much cheaper place to start.

There really isn’t enough rooftop solar that would cause an excess and affect the system load

Markcheese wrote: »

How likely is this to go ahead - it's an odd site for a start - not very big , right on the road to the refinery , tennis club on one side , being over looked by a lot of very very expensive houses ,
The guy is putting his money where his mouth is though , spent a lot buying the site - apparently has bought a very big site on the other side of the harbour as well , and very into offshore wind ..

All good points, but this does seem to have strong government support.

MAULBROOK wrote: »

You don't need 10kw of battery to cover the full day, a good solar pv system will cover the day (march to October) and a 5 to 7kw battery to cover the night.
Winter time charge the battery at night time rate to be discharged during the day.
With the feed in tariff coming in soon you can sell the excess.

With your roof it would be no brainer to check it out. Its the best thing I have done from a home improvement point of view.

What is the break even payback period?

Sam Russell wrote: »

Actually, pa back is important, but security of supply is important as well.

If solar water heating, PV electricity, EV car, feed in tariff coupled with smart meters - all these coupled with intelligent meters - so energy can be sold back to the grid at a profit.

Sounds good to me.

I assume if we as nation move to more evs , and more electric heating ,( water and space ),and then use smart metering the grid utilization should increase -which should help keep electricity costs down , even with more use of hydrogen ,and batteries ect
( And I know there'll be massive grid investment, but spread out over the whole population and time )

MAULBROOK wrote: »

Not a hope in power prices coming down, someone needs to pay for the loss in Petrol, Diesel taxes and the missive investment in our grid infrastructure upgrade needed.

Hahahah, I said keep them down , as in lower than they could be otherwise ..
i assume the fuel taxes will be replaced by motor tax/ road tax of some sort ,
Wether that gets based on the value of the vehicle / size of the battery/ weight of the car - or just milage done - who knows ,
Home heating oil and gas ?? Well there'll still be vat , but it'd be tricky to put excise duty on electricity , although some kind of extra levy will probably be added ..

tDw6u1bj wrote: »

Your whole argument is based on it being a road tax, which it isn't.

It's motor tax, and yes that is a meaningful difference.

Well that was a predictable response I was anticipating. The motor tax is predicated on a supposed user pays for environmental impact model. First it was CO2, now it's N ₂O. The idea being a punative incentive to choose a vehicle with a lower societal cost. Motor tax by weight would be following this established principle as road provision and maintainance is a cost.