Energy infrastructure

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120611923#Comment_120611923

My reading of that is more glass half empty; this will:

...facilitate the completion of the final site investigations and “pave the way for a planning application to be submitted in time"..

There's a long road ahead still

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120612783#Comment_120612783

Please, would you mind humouring me in lieu of a link: what was the average price from, say, 2015 to 2019 inclusive? I can't understand which of you is correct based on the lack of detail in the screenshot unfortunately.

Edit, for detail, it looks like you say that it was an average of 70 but that doesn't seem correct from the graph you've posted.

Dont Be at It

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120612783#Comment_120612783

Did you just take the max and the min and divide by 2 to get the "average" over a multi year period?? Good night Irene. 😂😂😂

Dont Be at It

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120612954#Comment_120612954

Did you see my point up further on rolling hedging? When gas prices were 1000% higher than normal last August was your bill also 1000% higher?

Be patient and if these lower gas prices persist for a few more months you should see your household bills falling towards the end of the year.

Seeing as you're so good at maths, calculate a 12 month rolling average of gas price for the past few years and show where we are in the cycle. I can assure you that's it's above pre invasion levels.

Also, your claim that wind is not making prices lower in this country... Power prices would have hit eye watering levels in the past few years (particularly when there were 3 large thermal units on forced outage in 2020) had it not being for wind reducing the demand.

No offence, but you clearly only have limited knowledge of electricity market dynamics and also seem to have an agenda. Not a good mix.

Dont Be at It

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120613043#Comment_120613043

No country that was fully exposed to the open market gas price avoided the problem. Relatively speaking these things balance out. Some market interventions, particularly in Spain helped keep a cap on price there.

I won't disagree with you that Ireland is expensive. But Ireland is expensive for pretty much everything.

You're blaming of high prices on wind is nonsense. In general, our high electricity prices are because of a huge uplift in demand the past decade (data centres), old thermal units with poor reliability, closure of units without anything to replace them and a poor grid infrastructure.

You can cherry pick particular variables to suit your agenda and post them on here without context along with silly numbers but it does the discussion no good. You need to have an overall view on how markets and pricing work. 👍

Geuze

I have a question about onshore/offshore wind power.

Are there any proposals to place wind turbines on uninhabited islands off the coast?

This should reduce the costs of the foundations?

But there would still be the cost to bring the power lines to the grid.

Geuze

I have a question about the O-RESS offshore wind auction this month.

Who are the counterparties? Who, exactly, will pay the 86 euro and buy the elec?

Markcheese

There arent that many off shore islands in the grand scheme of thongs , now remove the unihabited ones , the bird and wildlife sanctuaries, ect ect ,

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120614740#Comment_120614740

What uninhabited islands?

There are a few, most of which are quite close to the mainland and hence do not have any of the advantages of being offshore.

The furthest out islands are all inhabited.

Markcheese

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120614746#Comment_120614746

I think The wind farm operators get preferential access to the grid .. and the energy is purchased by the distributors , so electric Ireland, bord gais , SSE ect ,

They pay the market rate and if a top up is needed to bring the price to 86 euro a unit that comes out of the PSO. levy ..

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120613012#Comment_120613012

Sorry but thats rubbish - all grids in the EU with high levels of installed wind capacity have been consistently top of the EU energy cost league for the past 15 years. Ireland had below average energy costs up to 20 years ago prior to deregulation and the subsequent take over of energy policy by wind developers. These energy costs in particular are key drivers of inflation across the Economy as it affects everything from construction to domestic bills etc.

Dont Be at It

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120614951#Comment_120614951

You're adding apples and oranges and getting bananas.

If you read my previous posts you'd see that I don't necessarily think privatisation of electricity markets 20 years ago was a good thing. I think in general it has caused an uplift in prices. There certainly wouldn't have been extreme wholesale prices in the thousands of euro, that we've seen in recent times, happening in a regulated market.

However privatisation of the markets is not the reason for the huge uplift in wind capacity. This would have happened in a regulated market as well, because it was a decision taken at governmental/EU level in order to decarbonise the power market and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Wind capacity bids at zero (or even negative prices) into wholesale markets (as wind is free once the turbines are in place) so any notion that wind increases wholesale power prices is complete fantasy. Obviously there is a separate subsidy (appears as PSO on your household bill) that pays for the wind turbines, so I'm not saying they cost nothing in the bigger picture. If we want to decarbonise we have to pay something for it!

Your claim that all grids in EU with high levels of wind capacity have been top of the EU cost league for the past 15 years - correlation does not equal causation. It’s developed countries such as the UK, Germany, Ireland and Denmark (to mention just four) that are leading the way in wind capacity development. These countries would have been at the top of that price league regardless of wind or not – they’re expensive countries for most things! 

Dont Be at It

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120614746#Comment_120614746

Crude explainer - If we assume no offtake agreement with a third party, to keep it simple, the wind generation will be bid (usually at zero or negative prices to ensure it clears in the auction) into the day ahead auction. If the clearing price is less than €86 they get topped up via the PSO levy mechanism. If it's higher than €86 they pay back the difference into the PSO.

Barryroe application refused

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/energy-policy-was-not-the-reason-barryroe-offshore-permit-was-refused-environment-department/a653212855.html

North South interconnector to begin construction next year, nimby's are nimby'ing

https://www.meathchronicle.ie/2023/05/19/eirgrid-pledge-to-begin-pylon-construction-without-any-further-delay/

MightyMunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120614816#Comment_120614816

Rockall 😁

marno21

I have no doubt this site has been posted here before but this is an excellent website for data on the UK/GB grid:

https://grid.iamkate.com/

There are some clear observations to make based on the last 12 months.

1. Imports from France are a lot more favourable this summer than last summer. They seem to be steadily importing 2-4GW from France and 1.3GW from Norway. Contrast that with last summer when they were constantly exporting to France and flows to Norway averaged around 0 with swings between import and export. That's a massive swing of 5-7GW and less requirement to burn gas to replace the lost interconnector flows. It helps massively that gas is much cheaper now also. Electricity running around £50/MWh wholesale in the last 24 hours. Solar production seems to be doing very well this summer also, currently producing 9.4GW. Nuclear baseload steady at 5.3GW with gas making up solar and wind shortfalls.
2. Ireland is very much availing of all this excess energy in the UK and has imported between 400MW-1GW during the last 24 hours. Making up for lower wind energy production with excess energy from the UK is really working in our favour this summer at least. This will be even better for us when Greenlink and the Celtic Interconnector come on stream (and vice versa when our wind turbines off the coast are spinning).

Apogee

May be of interest to some here:

https://twitter.com/ESBGroup/status/1661016583781896193

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120649202#Comment_120649202

Winter futures for delivery in Jan/Feb '24 are still at €45/MWh. There could still be price volatility if a) some of the industry that shut down decides to reopen and b) there is a prelonged cold spell and the storage gets drained.

But we are indeed in a much better position than we were in August 2022.

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120649774#Comment_120649774

Sorry that winter price is TTF gas price for those months. It'd cost more than that to convert the gas into electricity.

ED E

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120635237#Comment_120635237

To your point 2. we had Tynagh out of action unplanned when you posted so that data wasnt representative.

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120649814#Comment_120649814

I see.

As an aside, how are imports counter in terms of carbon emissions? Is it zero seeing as the emissions are offshore?

I note at the minute we are importing 820MW from GB, the current emissions/kWh in GB is 64g/kWh (They are getting 11% from gas, 44.6% from wind/solar, 23% from nuclear/other and 20% from net imports)

antoinolachtnai

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120649898#Comment_120649898

They are counted under the GB cap and trade / emissions trading system.

Dont Be at It

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120649202#Comment_120649202

You appear to have either not read any of my previous posts on the thread or are being wilfully ignorant.

Read them and come back to me. 👍

Dont Be at It

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120635237#Comment_120635237

Spot gas prices in the UK were quite low mainly due to the glut of LNG at that time. There were huge orders put in but it had no where to go in Europe due to lack of terminals, so had to go to UK and hence buried the price.

This was then exported to the continent directly via gas interconnectors and indirectly via power interconnectors.

Better European infrastructure, higher storage, and lower demand have balanced the dynamic this year.

Dont Be at It

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120649774#Comment_120649774

Why bother posting when you clearly know very little about the topic.

You should just ask someone knowledgeable why they think retail prices are seemingly high when wholesale spot prices are falling day on day at the moment (which I've done for you). Then either accept that explanation or move on. 😃

I'm not even going to begin to explain what's wrong with your comment that I quoted.

Dont Be at It

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120653102#Comment_120653102

Have you gone back and read my posts yet? Or just sticking with the spouting of irrelevant nonsense? 🤣

If you read them (there's only a handful) and come back to me with something genuine I'll discuss, otherwise I'll leave you off. 👍

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120653137#Comment_120653137

Hi don’t be at it.

Could you link to where you explained why wholesale prices are dropping yet consumer prices stay high please as I can’t find it.

I presume it’s down to the hedging of fuel- but does this account for all the difference in price?

Dont Be at It

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120653483#Comment_120653483

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120611780#Comment_120611780

Hopefully that links correctly.

Yeah, it's pretty much down to the hedging. It's not an exact science as different companies will have different hedging strategies and purchase timings.

If a company was particularly unfortunate with their hedging timing last August/September they could have taken a huge hit as prices were swinging tens of percent every day and sometimes even within day.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120653611#Comment_120653611

thanks for that- I wonder do we have purchase data on when the fuel was bought and at what price compared to what they can get the fuel for now vs what they are charging.

That way we it would be fairly clear if it’s the cost input working it’s way through the system vs profiteering.