Lack of Wind Power use in Ireland !

thejollyrodger

I don’t know if anyone was reading yesterdays Irish Times. There was an article in it about the lack of use of Wind Power in Ireland. The figures involved in Wind power are astounding. There is something like 120% (The paper quotes 10% but the figure is 120%)
of the nation’s requirement for power available in wind, yet it only comprises of 2% at the moment.

Why hasn’t the government pushed ahead and invested heavily into Wind Power? Moreover, why are we paying excessively for our electricity?

The ESB seem dead set against the use of wind power, they reckon you need 100% back up in conventional power generation to support wind power. Yet the British minister for power says the figure of 8,000mega watts needs only a back up power of 600 mega watts.

Wind Power is 80% predictable 24 hours in advance, yet the average ESB availability is 77% for its thermal station.

Should the wind become intermittent and only generating 35% of customer demand, it is quite cheap to compensate for the fall off. It costs 0.5cent for a drop to 35%. It costs 12 cent for a unit of electricity generated conventionally.

With an open market, we could sell off any power we did not need and meet the Kyoto protocol. The government probably needs just to build two power connectors to England. (Much like Denmark & Germany).

I was in Germany a couple of years ago and we got a demonstration and talk by EWE http://www.ewe.de/. One of the management there was asking me why Ireland didn’t avail of all the wind power. I could not put an argument forward to say why not.

Germany has pressed ahead with Wind Farms even though they are less efficient that here and the return of investment is a lot lower.

The wind farms can be located, off shore for one where there would be little planning issue and they would be very efficient.

So why are we ignoring this free resource ???

(Please move mod to appropriate location).

den.fitz

Yeah it doesnt seem to make sense, you never here anyone talking about it especially politicians, the government must be protecting its own wallet as they know if wind power was used then the ESB could not justify their high prices and so would loose profit. At the moment most laymen do not knowhow electricity is made and so it has a sense of intrigue and therefore is easier for the ESB to charge such high prices. If it was known that all they were doing was building these huge eyesores in the middle of the country then to people would protest even to a much reduced price.
When I was in Deutschland I did however see loads of wind yokes and was much impressed.
They say
there must be something in the way I feel that she don't want me to feel
the stares she bares cut me I don't care you see so what if I bleed
And I could never change just how I feel my face will never show what is not real

i guess this is appropiate for the whole wind theme.
I've said my piece
Ciao

Alun

Surely though the problem is with the backup in case of insufficient supply from wind power. You can't just switch conventional power stations on and off at will as required, they have to be basically running 24/7 generating electricity that no one needs, hence such storage schemes as that at Turlough Hill. So doesn't that negate the whole advantage of wind power?

thejollyrodger

With the national grid and the interconnectors to the UK (which the minister is stalling on) this should take care of it.

Basically we export all the power to the grid - to UK - them on to the continent if need be. Then we take power off them when we need to.AFAIK

den.fitz

Oh dear now that does unsettle my stomach! Gosh!

Alun

thejollyrodger wrote:

With the national grid and the interconnectors to the UK (which the minister is stalling on) this should take care of it.

Basically we export all the power to the grid - to UK - them on to the continent if need be. Then we take power off them when we need to.AFAIK

But isn't that the same thing? All we're doing is transferring the responsibility for infilling any shortfalls in windpower to other countries rather than producing it ourselves, the net effect re: emmissions is the same.

Alun

den.fitz wrote:

No ALun it's not it's not the same at all think of the hoover electronics company

What are you on about?

thejollyrodger

stop taking the piss, go to some other board if you wish to do that.

Thats a good point about transferring the responsibility for infilling any shortfalls in windpower to other countries rather than producing it ourselves. Im not exactly sure about that.

Victor

Our market is too small to have wind as a major supplier. The interconnector to the UK is the real means by which wind will be developed.

The problem is peak enegy demand in Ireland is during calm periods with no cloud and low temperatures. Wind is useless in such situations.

Victor

den.fitz, less spam please.

BrianD

Should this not be in the Green forum?

thejollyrodger

With one or two major connectors to England, coudnt we sell off all the electricity to the UK and the rest of Europe (since they are connected). and then buy it back off the UK at a later date ?

Denmark (like us, small country, large potential power supply) is currently planning how to increase its power supply from wind energy to 60%

Stimpyone

It is my understanding that wind farms are unpopular with the locals because of the visual aspect ( i.e they look crap and ruin the view ).

The arguement put forward in the past was that wind farms would be a major blow to tourism in what ever area they are located. They also make an awful lot of noise ( or so I'm told ).

just for the record I'm in favour of wind farms

MrPudding

I think they look cool. Was there not an issue (possibly made up by ESB) about the wind generated power that has resulted in a suspension of installations of wind generator?

Why in this in commuting?

MrP

thejollyrodger

There are numerous sand banks around this island and are well suited for Wind. There is hardly ANY wind farms in the sea on the west coast. I think they are elegant, clean and not noisey. There is 10 times more noise in a saturday night party (*Irish Times)

Other research shows that the closer people live to windfarms, the more they like them.

The government should be pressing ahead with the 2 power connectors to the UK and also set up a group windpower farm scheme like they have in Germany. Basically you can build the windmills in small groups.

Talliesin

Alun wrote:

But isn't that the same thing? All we're doing is transferring the responsibility for infilling any shortfalls in windpower to other countries rather than producing it ourselves, the net effect re: emmissions is the same.

No, it makes good sense to spread the risk over a large number of power sources than to have all you eggs in the one basket.
Just what sort of power sources those are is a different matter.

Talliesin

Wind Power for Transport:
New Scientist - The new age of sail

dowlingm

Get rid of the NIMBYs and wind power would happen a lot faster. Unfortunately, wind power works best on hills but that makes their visual impact larger - enter NIMBYs. Until people are educated that wind towers are something to welcome in the landscape, more planning objections will keep coming.

Another issue with wind is birds - the naturalist David Bellamy considers them a huge killer of birds and thus their environmental impact has to take this into account.

Finally, regarding backup power, one solution would be to use wind to power a waterpump to fill a reservoir on high ground which would empty at a steady rate to power a water turbine. Isn't there a water pumping station somewhere in Wicklow? Not wind powered though.

Alun

dowlingm wrote:

Finally, regarding backup power, one solution would be to use wind to power a waterpump to fill a reservoir on high ground which would empty at a steady rate to power a water turbine. Isn't there a water pumping station somewhere in Wicklow? Not wind powered though.

It's called Turlough Hill, and is powered by excess power generated at night.

Iób

two other relevant points about varying supply and demand of electricity:

fossil fuel plants can be as low as 75% reliable, and often need long periods to reach peak production. Switching on a power plant is not like switching on a gas boiler at home.

electricity could be priced according to supply and demand - let the market set the consumer price and thereby stimulate use at times of greatest supply/lowest demand. A lot of consumption is randomly timed when a combination of financial incentive and some very simple technology would allow fridges, washing machines, storage heaters etc. to operate when the price fell below a certain level. Same applies to a lot of industrial uses. (At the moment there is only a general night-rate available only with a higher standing charge)

microCHP has considerable potential in this area as well

thejollyrodger

Another issue with wind is birds - the naturalist David Bellamy considers them a huge killer of birds and thus their environmental impact has to take this into account.

Thats a very narrow view on the subject. How many birds and other wildlife are being killed due to global warming ?

I might be wrong, but I think the main problem is that Ireland has to re configure the way electricity is generated and moved in this country. I.E ESB connect to the UK with an interconnector (or 2) and trade accordingly. It would probably require an large inital investment but would pay itself off over time.

thejollyrodger

Wind power on target
ADVERTISEMENT
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=184&si=1358507&issue_id=12211
IRELAND is on course to exceed the EU target for 2010 of 13.2pc of electricity generation from renewable sources, according to grid operator ESB National Grid.

Currently 307MW of wind energy is installed and operational across 36 separate wind farm projects around Ireland, with a capacity to provide power equivalent to the needs of 100,000 domestic customers, depending on wind conditions. According to ESB National Grid, 616MW of wind generation from 41 individual wind farm projects is at various stages of construction.

It added that these projects are expected to come on stream over the next 12-24 months resulting in wind being capable of contributing roughly 10pc of Ireland's total electricity demands depending on weather conditions.

Thats good news but still, we have 160% of our power needs available via wind

ishmael whale

dowlingm wrote:

...regarding backup power, one solution would be to use wind to power a waterpump to fill a reservoir on high ground which would empty at a steady rate to power a water turbine.

Judging from here, there’s a fair amount of sense in what you are saying.
http://turlough-hill.biography.ms/

“…. When the order is given, electricity can be made available within approximately a minute of startup. This is quite fast especially when compared with conventional sources such as coal, gas and oil which can take hours if not days because of the requirement to heat all machinery to the steam temperature.”

Just putting some crude figures on it, if Turlough Hill cost of £20 million in the late sixties its probably the equivalent of €250 in today’s terms. Replacing Moneypoint would require about three Turlough Hills. However, looking at it another way, ESB are currently investing about €3.5 billion in networks. Crudely, that would pay for maybe14 Turlough Hills, equivalent to about 4000 megawatts or over 80% of ESB’s power output. (Clearly you’d need some other power source such as wind powering the water pumps.)

( ESB give information on their generation plants here http://www.esb.ie/main/about_esb/power_stations_intro.jsp)

They are interesting speculations, and at least raise the prospect that there are real alternatives that we could be developing.