Last week was one of the coldest spells of weather here in Ireland of recent years. As usual with very cold periods, wind generation was low. The grid operators struggled to keep the lights on and many amber alerts were issued.
Wind energy contributed about 20% of the power on average.
Whitegate Gas power station was and still is out of action which is surprising for a modern ten year old power station. Gas power still provided the majority of the power in the grid mix - around 50%.
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| Wind energy last week - only a small portion of the total installed wind capacity of 4,000MW was available at times |
Coal provided 12% despite only two out of the three generators at Moneypoint functioning.
An internal ESB memo shows that national grid operator, Eirgrid, asked the company to start up one of its three generators at Moneypoint in Co Clare, which had been shut down, to avoid any possible risk of blackouts [Eirgrid].
Starting up a coal generator takes at least 16 hours to start up from scratch (cold start) so presumably this unit was kept ticking over (warm start). This is what many wind advocates do not understand - you simply cannot switch off a large power station and expect to turn it back on again at short notice.
Imports were only 1% presumably because UK had no surplus electricity of their own.
This then leaves "Other" at 10%.
There are only two possibilities for what this comprises now that all but one of the three peat power stations have been discontinued - waste to energy and oil/diesel. Only one waste to energy plant is currently in operation at 62MW. So assuming it was running at max output it was providing about 1.5% of the total fuel mix. Edenderry peat power station now operates at about 60MW also (the other half of it's fuel source is biomass) so likewise about 1.5%. Therefore, unless I'm missing something, about 7% of the fuel mix came from oil and diesel generators.
Which is roughly the portion of fuel mix from the two peat power stations that were closed down. Oil generation has not contributed this much since the 2000s. This amounts to an indictment of the renewable energy program, in that 4,000MW of new wind energy installed cannot replace 230MW of peat.
Based on that, the expectation that Moneypoint coal power station will close down by 2025 is now looking very unlikely.
Rumour has it that the decommissioned Moneypoint coal power plant was ‘hot started’ (which is likely to wreck the turbines) in an emergency to prevent a major blackout. Moneypoint power station was the backbone of the electricity supply system and as has been proved now is depended upon to keep the lights on. However if it is hot started or even warm started from cold then for how much longer will dependable reliable Moneypoint power plant last before it breaks down beyond repair? I was always under the impression that it took 3 days to power up a conventional power plant from cold. As for the 10% ‘Others’ in the fuel mix it was likely to be mostly diesel generated electricity from the increasing number of on site diesel and dual fuel generators installed in Big Corporate Data Centres that have joined the ‘Smart Electricity Exchange System’. Big Corporates often negotiate to get supplies of incredibly cheap ‘State Subsidised’ electricity from the grid to power their fossil fuel guzzling Data Centres. They usually install as back up banks and banks of diesel or dual fuel on site generators. In emergencies they can earn favourable rates for supplying electricity from the on site diesel or dual fuel generators to the national grid. It’s ironic that data centres are part responsible for a significant and increasing proportion of demand for electricity in Ireland that is contributing to the current amber alert scenarios where for example Moneypoint coal power plant has to be brought back on line to prevent major power outages and where banks and banks of onsite diesel and dual fuel generators are called upon to supply electricity to the national grid. And what’s even more ironic is that most people have been led to believe that Data Centres are powered by 100% renewable electricity. That’s a myth that the renewable electricity industry relies upon to keep up the narrative that yet more intermittent, unreliable, environmentally destructive, short lived, largely non recyclable, junk renewable technologies are required to be installed. It’s ironic that providing a variety of electricity subsidies to both the Data Centre and Renewable Energy Industry has resulted in destabilising the National electricity grid system to the point where there is a requirement for increasing amounts of ‘load shedding’ (managed power outages), an increased risk of major power outages necessitating the requirement for Moneypoint Coal power plant be brought rapidly back on line together with banks and banks of diesel and dual fuel generators. Are conventional electricity power generating systems around the world being wrecked? Anyone notice the increasing number of electricity blackouts around the world? Here in Ireland the other day in Cobh there was a major power outage. https://www.corkbeo.ie/news/local-news/over-1400-homes-cobh-without-19622997
ReplyDeleteBe prepared perhaps to having to resort to cooking and heating over a wood fire!
Some of the Big Corporate Data Centres are known to have negotiated to be switched off last where possible in the event of electricity power outages. So instead of having to switch to using the banks and banks of installed on site diesel/dual fuel generators to power the Data Centres they have the option to profit from supplying emergency electricity to the national electricity grid system via the ‘Smart Electricity Exchange’. That’s what one calls a smart business!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thegwpf.com/8-january-2021-europe-just-skirted-blackout-disaster/
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