By Owen Martin
1) Wind has had a Negative Impact on Electricity Prices - many energy companies have stated recently that they will be increasing the price of electricity due to a rise in wholesale prices. Yet, we were repeatedly promised by the powers that be that more wind energy would lead to a reduction in wholesale prices and help reduce dependence on the fluctuating international fossil fuel markets. The fact is that the fall in wholesale prices was barely passed on to the consumer (see graph below). When fossil fuel prices were low, as they were in the past few years (oil hit $40 a barrel in 2016), consumers barely saw a reduction in their bills. Did you notice any reduction ? I sure as hell didn't. We all saw a noticeable difference at the petrol pumps. Why hasn't there been an investigation into this by the Energy Regulator ?
What impact have the 1500 or more wind turbines scattered around the country had on electricity prices ? As far as I can see, they've contributed to higher prices, with hikes in visible taxes like the PSO levy and unseen levies such as the extra grid costs required to transport all this "free energy" around the country.
2) Climate Change - Met Eireann warned last month that more extreme weather is on the way and that another heatwave summer is now twice as likely because of climate change. Other people like Professor Sweeney of Maynooth have said that these events might be even four or five times more likely. Regardless of what you think about climate change, there's an obvious question that needs to be asked - weren't the 1,500 plus wind turbines that we've built supposed to lessen the impact of climate change in Ireland by reducing the burning of fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions?
If you've ever read through a planning application for a wind farms, you will see that climate change is regularly used as justification for the project. Have you seen less storms recently or less prolonged dry/wet periods ?
Surely we should be seeing some kind of decline in these extreme climate events after spending around €5 to €6 billion on wind energy projects and another few billion on the supporting infrastructure.
Greenies can't have it both ways - if climate change is getting worse then wind energy is obviously not the solution based on past performance.
3) Prolonged Calm Periods - This summer has been catastrophic for wind energy with prolonged periods of little or no wind. If we are to believe the climate experts, more heatwaves are on the way in the future bringing with them anticyclonic regions of persistent high pressure. If wind has made little difference to electricity prices or climate change now, it will have even less in the future as they operate at lower and lower output.
Wind energy has not been very profitable in Ireland with many companies struggling to make money and exiting the market. This can only get worse in the future. Who is going to bail them out ? Of course, we all know the answer.
So building extra wind turbines at a time when summers become increasingly hot with very little. Will reduce co2 further. Given the fact the sole function of a wind turbine is to extract energy from wind. Quite difficult to do when the wind is not blowing.Building wind turbines in the Irish Midlands to operate at 14% capacity factor is difficult to under stand . Particularly when Eirgrid expect 3,800 to 4,200 megawatts operating at 31% capacity to be sufficient to meet our 2020 targets. At a 14% capacity factor you would need to increase installed capacity by 221%. These guys really know what they are doing????????.
ReplyDeleteThe past Irish summer has been very calm. The past week in Ireland should have been windy, but the fleet of about 2,900 MW of wind has been yielding only an average of 750 MW this past week. It gone late into the year now so its unlikely factors will be above 17% and they could be lower. How companies are surviving is a mystery.
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