"Green" policies are destroying this country

SLow cooker, highly recommended. Throw it all in and come home to a tasty cooked dinner

Never tried a cake, is it good out of them?

And what do we do for the other ~20hrs a day at this time of year? Do we shut down the country.

Help me out here. I'm looking at this and wondering which of us is losing the plot.

Let's say for the sake of argument that the capacity factor of wind is 40%. It's actually closer to 30% (source: Eirgrid) but assume that it will increase for offshore wind:

Historically wind farms get paid for everything they generate. They get priority dispatch ahead of all other generators and they also get paid for dispatch-down. The latter means that they are recompensed for either curtailment (when their power isn't needed), congestion (when a particular section of the grid is overloaded), or frequency control (when there is too much renewable power to balance). The amount of dispatch-down has been increasing with renewables penetration:

In 2020 the level of dispatch-down varied as high as 18%, averaged 12% for the whole island (11.4% for Ireland and 14.8% for Northern Ireland):

EU rules on payments for dispatch-down are set to change. Nobody can afford to pay for an unlimited amount of power they can't use. But so far, someone investing in a wind farm can factor payments for everything into their ROI calculation. If they don't get paid full whack then the equation changes. The amount they need to charge goes up.

New technology on the grid allows more renewables to be accommodated. For example, BESS can provide peaking capacity and frequency control services. Increased grid capacity reduces congestion. That's all great but none of this stuff is free, in fact it's eye-wateringly expensive. It's not an accident that the fascinating "Redefining Energy" podcast is hosted by two investment bankers talking about the energy transition ...

Have a listen to episode 111 from this month, where they talk to a BESS provider operating in the UK, Ireland and the US. Greenies tend to talk as if these services sprout up from nowhere for the good of humanity. Nope, these are hardnosed business people who buy energy for zero and sell it back at €1,500/MWh. It's a superb business model that you and I are paying handsomely for.

So I just don't get it when you talk about a "zero cost of fuel and fixed running costs" for this 30+GW of excess capacity that we are talking about building. If I'm a wind investor who can afford to invest based on a 40% capacity factor and being able to sell everything I can produce at, say, €80/MWh ... then that's how much it costs. If you tell me I no longer get paid for curtailment, then my prices go up correspondingly so that my ROI stays the same. If you tell me there's no more curtailment on your EU2040 supergrid then that's fine and dandy: my prices stay the same.

If you are the system operator who has to buy my output, then I'm pleased for you that you no longer have to pay for curtailment. Instead you have pay a BESS provider. Or you have to use my output at 10% round trip efficiency, after you have paid other providers for electrolysis, hydrogen storage and/or ammonia production and storage, and regeneration. Every extra service you pay for, every extra inefficiency, is on top of the cost of already expensive wind generation.

If you have 9GW of average demand in 2040 but need 37GW of wind capacity you pay for all of that 37GW at the same rates (inflation adjusted) as you paid for each GW in 2023. It doesn't get cheaper because there's more of it. In fact, you have to pay on the double, or the triple, for all those other services and for your massively expanded grid. You still pay me (the wind generator) €80/MWh, and maybe 10x that for every MWh that has to do a round trip to storage.

As I said, somebody is losing the plot here and I'm ready to stand corrected if it's me. I am begging to understand how:

Because if I'm a wind provider who's already getting paid for everything I can generate, and my whole investment thesis depends on that, then nothing changes just because I happen to be the guy building the 37th gigawatt of capacity. My supply isn't "surplus". I'm either on the same footing as everyone else or I can't afford to invest.

And if you're the system operator then, great, you get back 12% more "free" energy compared to 2020 when you had to curtail it. Except it certainly ain't free -- all those extra services you needed to accommodate it makes it the most expensive power you ever bought. As a wag in my organisation used to wryly ask about things that sounded too good to be true: "Free ... but at what cost?"

200,000 is a terrible number of cattle. Please everyone when (ever ) the GE is called, please everyone remember this when those green candidates come knocking on the door.

If you can make a slow cooker catch fire you deserve a medal

Apparently there are medal winners out there. As with everything the question is not if but when. Things can and will break.

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency states that between 2012 and 2015, slow cookers caused 103 fires.

That might be a small number compared to the fires caused by other household appliances, but it shows you should always be careful."

and

"Many of the incidents in the fire data we analyzed were caused by unattended cooking. And although the promise of a slow cooker is that you can come home to a hot meal after it's cooked in a slow cooker all day, we don't recommend leaving it on when you aren't in the house."

This.

Heat pump can work in houses if you invest in insulation first. the hybrid heat pumps should be pushed more for retrofits. I am still trying to work out if the high temp heat pumps will work in retrofits but very few installation to make a statement on that

In regards to EV's, like any car it depends on what type of driving you are doing. If you spend the majority of the time doing long distance motorway driving then yes a diesel makes more sense. The average distance travelled in cars in Ireland is 12.7km. In these sort of trips an electric is more efficient.

In terms of cost per KM if you are filling at night rate or similar the cost per km is also lower.

You seem to be talking about the range difference in a car, yes a diesel will go further than an electric but again it depends on what type of driving you are at. Someone in Dublin for instance might fill a diesel car once a month and the cost per km will be a lot higher because of the type of driving. Someone doing a 200km a day commute to work on motorway will find the TCO a lot harder to work out. Especially when you consider the up front cost of the electric might be more.

Again like anything, you need to do some research, a blanket statement like you have made is incorrect because for a lot of people electric will work, for others it won't.

How many times has Ireland had a "prolonged power outage"? when they have happened it's due to a storm and most people would charge up their phone in case of this risk. It's the same with a car.

Honestly I don't know what you are talking about now. People use slow cookers. All over the World. Deal with it