There has been much news lately about the prospect of blackouts during the winter most notably by the Sunday Business Post. Huntstown and Whitegate gas power stations are both out of action, as is Tarbert diesel power station. There is also uncertainty around Moneypoint coal power station and the East West Interconnector although at the moment Moneypoint is running flat out. Coupled with the extra demand from data centres this means that some form of blackouts or "load shedding" (cutting off certain parts of the country for short periods to balance supply and demand) is quite likely this winter. However, the situation is changing rapidly and the latest is that Huntstown and Whitegate will be repaired by October / November. My own gut feeling is that it may be an over reliance on the UK Interconnector that finally puts us in the dark. Yet another coal powered station has been demolished over there, Ferrybridge in Yorkshire, which at a capacity of 2000mw was possibly the largest power station in Europe.
Anyone who has been following this blog will know that I have been predicting this situation for many years. Whitegate is only ten years old and is a modern combined cycle gas turbine (ccgt) station. It appears that the turbine has suffered serious damage from a tiny piece of metal that broke loose. It's difficult to attribute this to anything in particular but CCGT is the most efficient form of generation and there are concerns that operating them intermittently (to backup wind) will increase the wear and tear of the gas turbine. A bit like running your car in heavy traffic is less efficient than on a motorway. Huntstown has a problem with a transformer which could happen at any time.
The bigger issue here is that wind energy, no matter how much is installed, cannot replace a power station. So we are left in the dark when things go wrong with traditional generation despite spending billions on them. We have a bloated electricity sector, one of the most costly in Europe, yet one that is prone to regular amber alerts.
How did this happen? Quite simply, because of target based policies. Meeting targets is the only option on the menu. There is no room for good judgement and balanced decision making. It is rule by the target setting bureaucrat and the box ticker that has got us into this mess.
Targets for biofuel means dead orangutans.
Targets for agriculture means the destruction of the amazon.
Targets for heating means importing German peat briquettes.
Targets for electricity means blackouts.
Don't forget the most important target - achieving the highest penetration of asynchronous generation in a stand alone electricity grid. Our politicians have in their wisdom served up Ireland as a petri dish for experimentation with smart load balancing. And we, the people, voted them in with a mandate to do so.
ReplyDeleteSo no whingeing please, when the lights go out.
I have been forced to listen to the horrors of co2 gas for the past 10 years. Now British meat processors warn that there is a shortage of co2 used in processing and storing meat products. The high price of gas (including the carbon tax) halted production of fertilizer in two UK plants. Vo2 is a by product. Shortages of fertilizer could result in severe food shortages next year.
ReplyDelete