Energy infrastructure

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120848515#Comment_120848515

Although the article describes it as updated "technology", is it really? It's simply a massive increase in the swept area per turbine, probably from around pi * 500m2 to pi * 8,000m2. Solar panel technology has been improving without doubt but the technology changes in wind turbines are probably only those that allow them to be built bigger than a step change in turbine technology?

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120848515#Comment_120848515

There is surely fantastic potential for this in Ireland too. The earlier wind turbines were erected in the areas with some of the best wind conditions for generation so replacing earlier wind turbines that generate < 1MW per turbine with 4/5MW turbines will greatly improve generation.

An example is the wind farm on the Stacks Mountains heading into Tralee (when heading to Tralee on the N21 it’s on your right). Theres lots of days when turbines further inland are barely spinning but these ones are at full tilt. It’d be great to see the potential for increased output at a site like this.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120848751#Comment_120848751

It would be great to get larger turbines at these sites but I imagine that brings in a larger land area that would be affected by the effects of the larger turbine? Ie light flicker, vlf noise etc, so maybe there would be size limits on individual turbines?

Maybe not either.

plodder

Speculation about a renewable source of hydrogen, that is frankly hard to believe, but some are taking it seriously

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/13/white-hydrogen-disrupt-global-energy-net-zero/

https://archive.li/gf5LP

Ben D Bus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120849166#Comment_120849166

If I were a cynic, I'd say that sounds a lot like Big Oil saying "Stop supporting renewables, we'll drill us out of trouble". Thankfully I'm not a cynic 😊

But who knows, maybe there's something in it.

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120848681#Comment_120848681

The industry hasn't bothered its ar$e eithier to adopt available tech such as bladeless turbines or ones that rotate like anemometers that would solve alot of the issues with their impacts on birds, bats, noise, flicker etc.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120853328#Comment_120853328

Because most alternatives are shite options for various reasons

https://youtu.be/6vb18oXPli4

plodder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120850737#Comment_120850737

That was my thought too, and there is probably an element of truth to it, in terms of big oil and the exploration industry pinning their hopes on it. But, it's the nature of disruptive innovation that it appears out of nowhere. I don't think anyone should be talking about changing plans on that basis yet anyway. Though I fear, going on our attitudes towards another disruptive innovation (shale oil/gas) that we would be the last ones to change tack if it ever is proven.

Apogee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119327915#Comment_119327915

Rather than going through Mayo CoCo, Mercury Renewables are applying via SID to ABP for this project. The RTÉ report below mentions a 78MW 13 turbine colocated windfarm. The SID doc specifies 80MW electrolyser capacity.

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2023/0714/1394513-bord-na-mona-green-hydrogen-plant/

https://www.pleanala.ie/publicaccess/EIAR-NIS/317560/Planning/Planning%20Statement/Planning%20Statement.pdf

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120853597#Comment_120853597

Depends if your comfortable with the amount of collateral damage inflicted for the profit motive - as for "shite options" many would include wind energy itself under that headline in terms of energy poverty, biodiversity damage etc.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120857116#Comment_120857116

Got details?

Solar is starting to show up in the energy data reports now as its being rolled out on at a growing rate here

https://twitter.com/IrishEnergyBot/status/1682057858387529730?s=20

Apogee

Apparently commissioning of the Moneypoint synchronous condenser is also complete - see full thread for details

https://twitter.com/Spark_ie/status/1677432853733203969

cnocbui

Looks like the wheels might be coming off the offshore wind industry:

Swedish energy giant Vattenfall has halted a massive British offshore wind project, throwing a sharp spotlight onto surging costs in an industry that is only just getting started Down Under.

Vattenfall said it would stop work on the 1.4 gigawatt Norfolk Boreas wind farm, off England’s eastern North Sea coast, after a 40 per cent surge in costs.

...

Wind farm developers across Europe have been warning for some time about bottlenecks in their supply chains, particularly as manufacturers of wind turbines and components struggle with rising costs and surging demand.

The offshore wind sector’s woes are many: double-digit inflation, elevated steel prices, rising borrowing costs in a capex-intensive industry, and skills shortages that also spur steeper wages growth. These are compounding into what some in the industry are calling “an inflection point” for the sector.

“The market for offshore wind power is challenging,” said Vattenfall CEO Anna Borg. “Higher inflation and capital costs are affecting the entire energy sector, but the geopolitical situation has made offshore wind and its supply chain particularly vulnerable.”

Other offshore wind developers with projects on the British coastline are also reportedly hesitating over their final investment decisions, as are some in continental Europe.

Government-subsidised “strike prices” – awarded under “contracts for difference” that smooth out volatility through a guaranteed, inflation-adjusted price – may now be too low.

The Norfolk Boreas project’s CfD, awarded last year, was for £37.35 per megawatt-hour for the first 15 years, in 2012 prices and linked to inflation – making it worth about £45 per MWh in today’s terms. Some reports have suggested the companies’ breakeven point has shifted closer to £55.

...

The Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act has triggered a demand surge in the US. Along with frothy demand in China, that means Europe is urgently looking at how to ramp up domestic turbine manufacturing capacity, and the new supplies of rare earths to go with it.

The trouble is that turbine manufacturers such as General Electric, Vestas, Siemens Gamesa and Nordex have been posting losses in the past year, often selling products at below cost.

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/offshore-wind-developers-hit-the-brakes-in-britain-20230720-p5dq2a

I wonder what are chances of this not adversely affecting the development of OSW here?

Apogee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118151038#Comment_118151038

Construction on this 108MW solar farm now starting with a completion date of late next year. Seeing quite a bit of activity in relation to solar infrastructure of late.

https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2023/0720/1395422-bord-na-mona-esb-start-construction-of-new-solar-farm/

[EDIT] Solar figures for Q2 added

https://twitter.com/IrishEnergyBot/status/1682322408609394688

bk

“I wonder what are chances of this not adversely affecting the development of OSW here?”

Err the issues of inflation, rising interest rates and construction costs mentioned in this article will impact all major infrastructure projects, including building gas plants, Metros, insulating homes and your favourite Nuclear.

In fact rising interest rates are absolutely devastating to the economics of building Nuclear power plants, much worse then a wind project or any other type, given how many decades it takes to build one, compared to wind.

Unfortunately these issues impact the entire concept of decarbonisation, it makes it harder and more expensive all round, to build out new infrastructure, doesn’t matter if you favour wind or Nuclear, it is troublesome news all round.

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120877121#Comment_120877121

Norway also halting this nonsense on the back of costs and environmental concerns earlier this year

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120881657#Comment_120881657

So will Equinor also be shutting down their gas exploration operations due to environmental concerns?

The Irish Solar Energy Association (ISEA) recently released a report on the status of solar installations around the country

https://www.irishsolarenergy.org/news-1/ireland%27s-solar-revolution

The breakdown is as follows

Nearly 60,000 homes now have solar installed on rooftops. Thats impressive at this stage.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120881657#Comment_120881657

Might want to double check your sources

The Norwegian government has announced its first offshore wind tenders as part of its ambition of allocating areas to generate 30GW by 2040.

Norway, a major producer of oil and gas as well as hydropower, plans to commission up to 30 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2040, equal to around 75% of the country's current power producing capacity.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/norway-opens-tenders-offshore-wind-2023-03-29/

marno21

State plans to scale up power interconnectors to Europe and UK with view to exporting renewable energy

https://mobileapp.irishtimes.com/environment/climate-crisis/2023/07/26/move-to-scale-up-power-interconnectors-announced-by-minister-eamon-ryan/

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120897033#Comment_120897033

This is a very important part of the Energy mix for both Ireland and the EU/UK

Ireland, being on the periphery of Europe extends the geographic reach of Europe's natural energy resources, which reduces the impact of a notorious 'dunkelflaute' where there is a long lasting continent scale shortage of both wind and solar power.

Ireland increasing our interconnectivity to EU and UK in both the capacity, and the number of independent grid connections, will also massively increase Ireland's energy security and reduce the need for gas turbines to provide backup power on our island.

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120899041#Comment_120899041

Yes it’s a fantastic development. The more the merrier we’ve been making some massive use of the GB interconnectors this summer often filling out boots with what they can supply.

Hopefully the opposite in winter when we have excess wind.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120897033#Comment_120897033

Lol. Eamon is such a spoofer.

"They also allow for increased energy imports in the case of an adverse shock, which may occur during extreme weather events."

That there is the real reason. Looks like someone is having doubts about the viability of the whole hydrogen storage plan. Speaking of which, I thought the master plan called for excess OSW generation capacity to be used to generate vast quantities of hydrogen in a hugely inefficient process, so as to provide the necessary backup for your 6 week dunkelflaute and to decarbonise road transport and industrial processes?

So now we are going to have so much spare capacity we'll be doing all that and exporting vast quantities to boot? As I said, absolute spoofer. When your Irish strike price for OSW is near double that of the UK, you will be giving it away at a loss. If wind conditions are so good ireland has a significant excess, then it's highly likely The Scottish wind farms will be very productive also, further reducing the liklihood of them wanting to take it off our hands.

The Irish strike price made our OSW amongst the most expensive in the world, at €98 per MWh. Which is a bit odd, given we are supposed to have some of the best wind resources in the world. It ought to have been cheaper because the resource is better quality so the amount of energy generated vs the capital outlay should be higher.

The UK’s Third Contracts for Difference (CfD) auction has cleared at the record low price of £39.650/MWh for Delivery Year 2023/24 and £41.611/MWh in 2024/25 (2012 real)

That's €46 and €48 respectively (rounded). Export my arse. To export with any sense of an actual economic return, you would have to charge a higher price than it's costing and then a significant premium to cover the multi billion cost of the Interconnectors.

This past month we've been importing, not exporting.

bk

"This past month we've been importing, not exporting."

On an annual basis we export twice as much as we import over the interconnectors.

Markcheese

I'm not surprised that irelands off shore wind price is high , we missed the boat on cheap commodities to build wind farms , and missed the boat on getting them built ,( everyone else wants offshore wind ASAP , if not sooner )

Also our schemes are relatively small , as well as not having some of the shallow resources such as dogger bank , ( both those allow the construction companies to plan on years of work at a site ),grid capacity is a big deal too- and interconecters will help with that ..

But the big delay is regulation,and probably legal challanges if its going to be design 10 projects to get 1 through , and that one will spend years and years in court challenges , thats all money spent ,that aint coming back - and the developers charge for that risk .

If an efficent,effective planning and licensing system comes in ,and the court precedents are dealt with ,you'll see the actual costs and delivery times come way down ,

New weekly report splitting out the various renewable elements of the grid

https://twitter.com/IrishEnergyBot/status/1684906074917183488?s=20

Another flywheel to be added to the grid by ESB

https://www.con-telegraph.ie/2023/08/17/green-light-for-esb-plan-to-boost-supply-from-mayo-wind-energy-site/

I think the plan is for 8 or 9 of these to be added over the next few years

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120899041#Comment_120899041

According to the ESB the last major dunkelflaute had Ireland and western europe essentially without wind for 6 weeks straight. It's a fantasy that Ireland would be likely to be outside of the area of influence.

In terms of exporting excess; can you explain to me the economic rationale there, when Ireland's strike price for OSW is considerably higher than the UK's? It simply is not going to be the case that Ireland's OSW will be going like a train while Scotland's isn't. In almost all instances wind conditions producing an excess in Ireland will be producing an excess from Scottish OSW farms as well, with no incentive for the UK to take excess from Ireland at a huge price premium over their own OSW costs.

Ireland would have to sell excess OSW at a significant loss to get either the UK or France to take any. France won't need it with their 70%+ nuclear resource. They don't have to worry about dunkelflautes. They won't have export capcity for Ireland either, as the stupid Germans are going to be near begging them for every erg they can spare when their turbines are all sitting still.

The Celtic interconnector is costing €1.6 billion for 700 MW capacity, That's €2.08 billion per GW, and it generates not a single watt. If you really are proposing multi GW of interconnectors as your dunkelflaute backup, then you are not thinking clearly. The ESB have themselves said interconnectors are useless in dunkelfalaute situations because they are so geographically widespread, there will be no excesss capacity to be supplied to Ireland, as all of europe will be short on power due to over-reliance on wind.

The stupidity of interconnectors is such that they are about half the cost per GW of a zero CO2 enrgy generation technology that has a 96% capacity factor and isn't weather dependent.

Thinking you can rely on another country to supply your renewables backup is a incomprehensibly stupid and utterly reckless strategy. The only reason that clown Ryan is talking interconnectors is because the penny seems to have dropped somewhere, likely with the ESB, that the great hydrogen storage idea isn't going to work.

10-10-20

That's an interesting perspective @cnocbui, but I feel that it's insular. Without an interconnector we remain an energy island, unable to export and unable to import. Interconnecters open up the energy market beyond the limits of localised solar, gas and coal. True they won't provide wind energy during a pan-Euopean dunkelflaute, but those are transient entities and the backup for those durations will be the energy mix of gas, (coal), solar, imported nuclear and so on. The key thing is that it will facilitate two-way transfers and opens the market further than what we have at this point.

Spain's massive solar industry is kicking into high-gear and significant quantities of energy storage alongside it. They are also planning on creating a new 700MW link into Morocco. Those available electrons then just need to be displaced along a grid connected to the celtic interconnector for Ireland to - in theory - run partially off Spanish or Moroccan solar power.

https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/infrastructure/electricity-interconnection-targets_en

So bring on the interconnectors, the wind and the solar, I say.