Over the past decade, as many readers will know, there has been a huge furor in many communities north and south of the border about the North South Interconnector. With the main bone of contention being the decision by Eirgrid not to underground it. However, it looks like Eirgrid have finally learned a lesson from that and are now listening to communities. But surely this new approach by Eirgrid raises questions about their existing plans for the North South Interconnector ?
On the grid side, we have made three decisions in the past 12 months that we arguably might not have made five years ago. We declared that two major pieces of grid infrastructure are going underground. The first is in the Dublin-Kildare region where we have made the call and said a critical piece of west Dublin infrastructure is going to be underground.
We have said the line to Mayo will be underground and the converter station for the Celtic Interconnector, one of Ireland's most critical projects which will link us to France, will be located not beside the substation in Knockraha, but in an industrial site in Ballyadam. This is because that is what communities asked us to do - Mark Foley, CEO Eirgrid
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‘....the Celtic Interconnector, one of Ireland's most critical projects which will link us to France’ Critical for whom? Intended to supply cheap nuclear power from France on a direct line to Big Corporate Data Centres and destroying Ireland’s landscape in the process with ugly high voltage power lines that are totally unnecessary for the domestic demand minus the data centres?! And who paid the lions share for the Celtic Interconnector? And the transmission energy infrastructure? And now funnily France currently has one of the highest electricity prices in Europe....of course several of these issues were well pointed out to officialdom from the outset but it seems that protecting the interests of Big Corporates sadly outweighed protecting the best interests of the Indigenous Natives!
ReplyDeleteExtract from article....
'France has suffered a spike in electricity prices after its nuclear-reliant grid was stretched by the temporary closure of four reactors.
The reactors, which are not expected to re-open until well into next year, were taken offline after faults were discovered during safety checks.
French prices soared to their highest since 2009, putting them among the highest in Europe. It adds to a wider energy squeeze, with Europe at the mercy of cold weather and political developments in Russia, its main gas supplier.
A pressure group called Ecology Action called for the resignation of Energy Minister Barbara Pompili over the closures, which have forced France to import electricity produced from fossil fuels.
Ms Pompili is “directly responsible for the current fiasco”, the group said, after overseeing the closure of two other reactors last year. Further outages are expected in January.
The minister said there was no danger of blackouts in France because of contingency plans to reduce voltage and energy use. She asked French electric company EDF, which runs 56 nuclear reactors in France, whether it could restart its offline reactors sooner than planned.
Safety inspectors found faults in two reactors at the Civaux power plant, and another two were switched off at the Chooz facility because they were the same type of reactor.
France gets about 70 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power. The setback comes as it plans a new generation of nuclear reactors and leads a push to have them classified as climate-friendly by the EU.'
https://www.msn.com/en-ae/news/world/french-nuclear-closures-send-electricity-prices-soaring/
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/edf-extend-civaux-nuclear-outage-shut-down-reactors-chooz-safety-measures-2021-12-15/
The Natives pay for the energy infrastructure required to import cheap nuclear generated electricity to power the data centres.
ReplyDeleteWell that was the plan!
Leaving the costs of the Celtic Interconnector aside the cheap imported electricity would have reduced the level of subsidised electricity that the Big Corporate Data Centres receive courtesy of the Natives. Now if cheap electricity supply from France is no longer available then the Celtic Interconnector is already redundant before it has even been put into operation. And that means the poor Natives may have to continue subsidising at a high rate the electricity consumed by Big Corporate Data Centres. And as electricity prices continue to rise then also the level of subsidisation of electricity enjoyed by Big Corporates increases and the increased costs are then likely to be passed on to the poor Natives. Big Corporates with a high demand for electricity tend to negotiate favourable rates per kW/h and tend to negotiate favourable ‘load shedding’ agreements whereby the poor Natives have their lights switched off first in the event of grid frequency instabilities and power outages.
The leader of the Green Party thought installing lots of unreliable expensive Interconnectors were the solution to all the problems caused by having too much intermittent renewables in the energy mix. As Minister for Energy he must be apoplectic now at the thoughts of having to switch Moneypoint coal power plant back on, having to commission new gas power plants, having to ask Industry to switch to using their on site dual fuel/diesel generators and together with soaring electricity prices.......whatever happened to the 3S Mantra of a Safe Secure (Affordable) Supply of electricity?!