"Green" policies are destroying this country

Are you arguing for or against renewables or nuclear here?

That question is so broad as to be meaningless!

Define "over-investment" in the context of this thread.

We have been hearing how great the U.K.`s offshore wind-farms are, and if it "looks like it`s blowing nicely offshore" why is their percentage from so poor at just 1.3%.?

It`s even worse than ours.

Because they have more capacity from non wind sources than wind sources? Isn't that just how percentages work?

You cant just compare percentages of output when literally everything you are comparing is different.

Anyone know what date we will have our first offshore wind farm operational?

I presume we can’t have any operational at the minute as we are only generating 6.32% of our electricity via renewables at the moment- which obviously includes all renewables.

So what date does the answer to our electricity needs arrive?

(gas plus coal providing 86% at 07:07am FWIW)

Arklow bank has been in operation for a few years. (25MW nameplate capacity is now less as 1 turbine that burned in a lightning strike + inefficiency due to to erosion of blades). The gold rush is stalled at the moment, more planned, still lots of hopium to be inhaled. You know what happens in a gold rush the only people making money are those selling picks and shovels.

But surely if offshore is the answer- and seen as we have Arklow bank in operation- we would be generating more than 6.32% at 7am?

Unless it’s not really the answer…….

Show me a nuclear plant that has been delivered on time and on budget before you talk about the problems of renewables.

What I am doing is comparing the cost of providing for our needs comparing different energy sources. When the wind does not blow it provides little or nothing. Nuclear provides in the high 90% range of its capacity regardless of weather.

At the moment system demand is 6,314 MW. Wind is providing 423 MW (6.7%)

Installed wind capacity is 4,309 MW so wind is supplying just 9.8% of it`s nameplate capacity. You could multiply the present number of turbines by 10 and it`s not going to change that percentage,

To get to 95% of our needs at just the present demand you would need 16 times the number of turbines we presently have. 6 1.1 Gigawatt reactors would do the same.

What you are doing is ignoring the decades of failures and costs that got nuclear to where it is today and comparing it to renewables (in this case wind) and deciding that nuclear is better.

You say 16 times the number of wind turbines compared to 6 nuclear reactions as if the basic number of units means anything. I might as well point out that 16 of something gives far more redundancy than 6 of something.

Eirgrid system demand forecast for today shows us possibly beating the all time record for electricity demand:

Wind is producing more or less nothing.

In our fossil-free future we will have stored enough hydrogen to get us over these multi-day/week outages. The ESB tells us that we will need 30 GW of offshore wind to provide for day-to-day demand plus hydrogen storage. They say specifically that this level of wind power will:

• cater for current levels of demand only
• not provide any power for export
• not provide power for the planned 1 million EVs or 600,000 heat pumps.

Even the 7 GW of offshore wind targeted for 2030 is now looking like none of it might be built. We have yet to see how inflation factors into the bids in the ORESS1 auction (which itself seems to have gone AWOL and was supposed to have happened by now). We've yet to see some analysis of why the latest Irish onshore wind costs are a multiple of the prices we've seen claimed for offshore in other countries. The claims of wind being "nine times cheaper than gas" are still being bandied around in spite of that referring to one single day of gas price spikes (26-Aug-2022) and a wind price that is laughably tiny compared to what Irish operators are charging.

Meanwhile, our thermal generating infrastructure is in tatters and about to get worse. We have a minister who seems to think his pipedreams about hydrogen (which is clearly decades away) obviate the need for any planning for the emergency we are facing. He also clearly doesn't give a fiddler's for Ireland's business reputation.

I've been watching that closely all day alright, and the actual demand has been trending ahead of forecast since about 8AM, so chances are it could beat it by a good bit more than the 1MW expected.

The most alarming thing is nearly 24% of our electricity generated over the last 24 hours has been reliant on two power plants that are now being wound down, primarily on emissions grounds (Tarbert HFO - classed under "Other" - is to close in 2023, and Moneypoint coal in 2025). Between them 1.5GW of peak power output (although Tarbert is apparently down to half it's 600MW maximum rated capacity following damage from a boiler fire that they've decided is not worthwhile repairing on account of it's closure next year anyway).

No major new wind generation is due online by that time, nor will we have any significant additional storage. What the hell are we going to do if the 2025-2026 winter season and beyond ends up with another event such as this and we don't have that 24% of generation to make it up any more?

What would be wrong with having these companies offset their ecological cost by paying towards renewable energy sources?