The grid operator in Ireland has always required back up generation, known as operating reserves, in the event that a power station fails which could cause a widespread blackout. Usually, these are powered by fast acting fossil fuel plant which can be switched on in an instant. But Ireland's transition to a wind powered based grid has not resulted in less back-up, but more back-up generation which obviously has an impact on the ability of wind to reduce emissions.
The first table below is from a few years ago and shows four different types of operating reserve with a minimum requirement of 110MW during the day and 75MW during the night.
The next table is from 2020 and shows that Reserves have increased to 155MW during the day and 150MW during the night - a 40% increase during the day and a doubling during the night.
"Generally, the demand for replacement reserves increases with
increasing wind power capacity installed.
The occurrence of high demands for replacement reserves isIn another 2005 study by R. Doherty and M. O’Malley of UCD Dept of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, titled “A new approach to quantify reserve demand in systems with significant installed wind capacity” it was stated that :
mainly driven by a high number of simultaneous forced outages that happens
simultaneously to relatively high wind power. The value of these peaks tends to increase with increasing wind power capacity installed."
The methodology is applied to a model of the all Ireland electricity system, and results show that as wind power capacity increases, the system must increase the amount of reserve carried or face a measurable decrease in reliability [i.e. increase the risks of a blackout - blog note].
So this was well known, that as you increase wind energy, the grid becomes more unstable, and more back-up reserves are needed. It's becoming increasingly clear that Ireland has already reached it's limit on wind generation, where the benefits are more than offset by the costs.
It was never about reduction of fossil fuels. It's about 'feel good' 'gut Mensch' philosophy, while carrying out a technocrat communist agenda.
ReplyDeleteCommunist technocrats were never any good.As they always had to conform to teachings of Marx and Lenin. Even when these teachings contradicted science. That is what is now happening in Ireland. When it comes to energy policy.The Soviet Union no longer exists as a result. A scientific reality always survives,The Irish Renewable energy program will go the same way as the Soviet Union. It is important that those who took the risks and failed should live with the consequence of this failure. Not the taxpayer.
ReplyDeleteCurrently there is sufficient wind capacity to achieve 70% Renewable output on the grid ON WINDY DAYS. The problems begin when the wind does not blow.Assuming we are using 4000MW to achieve 70% on windy days. On days when the wind not blowing that well say getting 7%. You would theoretically need 10 times more capacity, 40,000 MW to get the crazy governments target.Actually you would need significantly more capacity because of LOWER wind speeds on potential wind farm sites and increasing density.As wind farm density increases kinetic energy left in the wind to operate wind turbines tends toward ZERO. I have to concur with your analysis that reserve capacity will never be reduced.Crazy Eamon the sleepy one would disagree with me. But then again he tends to sleep a lot.
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