Coal and Oil to the Rescue During Cold Weather

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%. 

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.

128% Increase in Oil Generation Last Year

 While there was much hullabaloo recently in the media about a 4.5% reduction in emissions last year, there was no mention at all about the reversal in the trend of oil generation.  Oil generation was  mostly phased out of electricity generation in the 2000s and replaced with efficient ccgt gas generation. However, 2019 saw a 128% rise in oil fired electricity generation, mainly due to Tarbert power station in Kerry which runs on heavy fuel oil. 

With Moneypoint coal power station running much less last year (almost 70% less),  the official story is that wind and gas were able to fill the gap left by the loss of Ireland's largest power station, but in truth Tarbert power station only 2km away across the River Shannon, was also important in keeping the lights on. 

Oil fired generators are fast acting, they can be switched on very quickly, but are less efficient and more polluting than modern gas power stations. This blog predicted many years ago, as did  experts like Pat Swords, that more wind energy would result in more fast acting generators such as oil to balance the grid. Hence, emissions savings from wind would be offset by increasing reliance on oil. 

The 128% figure comes from a new EPA report, page 11 :

https://www.epa.ie/pubs/reports/air/airemissions/ghgprovemissions2019/EPA-Prov_GHG-Inventory-Report-1990-2019_final.pdf

Fuel Consumption 2012 to 2018 - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

In the course of the transition we will gradually reduce our dependence on the fossil fuels – coal, peat, oil and gas – that currently dominate our energy mix - Alex White, Energy Minister, White Paper, 2015

Despite massive efforts to reduce carbon emissions and fossil fuel dependence by successive Irish governments, the efforts have largely proven a failure, as fossil fuel consumption rose by 15% between 2012 and 2018. The government placed an overemphasis on wind energy as the solution, which doubled in capacity during that time to 3,600MW. Demand may also have increased, which in of itself is a failure to reduce consumption habits, and an over emphasis on the generating of electricity. Demand could have been tackled through retrofitting, promotion campaigns aimed at reducing consumption, moving away from the GDP standard, encouraging saving rather than spending (central bank have been doing the opposite), and preventing population growth by curbing immigration.

The main driver of the increase was petroleum products, including natural gas (used in power stations), which has risen by about 20%.

Natural Gas increased by 20%

In 2012, gas generated half of our electricity, as it did again in 2018, but this time with a significantly higher gas consumption. When your car comes off the motorway and goes into ‘stop start’ urban driving it burns more fuel, just like power plants forced into such operation, as intermittent wind energy pours on and off the grid.   

In their favor, coal and peat decreased by 23% and 8% respectively. The reduction in these, contrary to the common held belief, was due to several factors  - an increase in gas, oil, renewables and electricity imports from the UK (the East West Interconnector began operation in late 2012).  The US achieved a 27% reduction in CO₂ emissions during the period 2008 to 2017 by simply switching from coal to gas. So too emissions savings in Ireland arise from switching from coal to gas, a lower emitting fuel,  and importing electricity from the UK, where the resulting emissions are counted, and after that, renewables make up the rest of the savings.  

Peat decreased by 8%

For gasoil and diesel we can see that not only has dependence on transport risen, but  oil used in power generation has also, quite remarkably, increased. Much of this increase is due to an oil powered station in Kerry (Tarbert) which ran more in the grid, presumably because of the closures at Moneypoint. There are also more demand side units, which comprise of diesel generators.

We can also see that we are more addicted to air travel than ever, as jet kerosene consumption doubles. How could a virus pandemic ever be prevented from reaching our shores ?

So we have to ask the question, why are we still consuming high amounts of fossil fuels, after installing so many wind turbines ?  Media reports that show that a high percentage of our electricity came from wind fail to mention what we actually saved as a result. If I cycle from Dublin to Galway, but a car follows me all the way, what have I actually saved ? It is obvious now that they are not a long term solution to reducing dependence on fossil fuels. 

In 2020, there is still, regrettably, peat being used in electricity production, although there is an issue about the impact on employment in the midlands region that has still not being resolved. The renewables industry, as we now know, is not a big employer. 

The Energy Bubble

Generating Capacity for the Republic of Ireland, we have over twice as much as we need

The above graph shows how an energy bubble has been created in the past decade. Whereas in 2006, at the height of the building boom, we only needed enough generating capacity to cover 1.3 times the peak demand, we now have 2.4 times the capacity required. Peak demand levels in 2019 are the same as 2006 levels. All this capacity has to be paid for either through the market or from subsidies that are added on to energy bills. New fossil fuel plant are also in the pipeline.

The Cost 

The EU publishes an energy price report every two years. The last year available of full data is 2016; which shows a circa €490 billion bill for energy sources, €212 billion being imported fossil fuels, plus an additional tax squeeze of €280 billion, of which €76 billion in subsidies is for the renewable sector equating to €208 million per day or €150 from each citizen.

€48 billion was paid directly to wind and solar generators on top of the market price for generating 13% of EU’s electricity mix. 

The market price plus tax paid to gas and solid fuel generators, for generating 41% of the EU's electricity mix, were also €48 billion. 

Turkeys would not vote for Christmas if they were able to educate themselves.

Only Ten Percent of Wind Capacity can be Relied Upon Over Winter

Eirgrid, the grid operator, have assessed that only 10% of the entire wind generation fleet in Ireland can be relied upon during the high electricity demand winter period. Solar power fares even worse as zero solar capacity can be relied on as the dark cold evenings draw in.

Conventional gas and coal generators are considered to be around 90% reliable as they can be switched on and off when called upon, once sufficient notice has been given. However, wind is unreliable in nature and is therefore given a "capacity credit" to take account of this unreliability :

 Given the variable nature of wind power, the wind capacity credit expresses how much conventional power generation can be avoided or replaced by a certain level of wind power. 

Only 476MW out of a total of 4,617MW or about 10% can be relied upon in the event that a conventional generator fails :

When it comes to keeping the lights on there is no room for the hyperbole and feel good talk that permeates much of the debate around renewables in the media and in the chambers of the Irish parliament.

The spare generating capacity above electricity demand is called the capacity margin. It has halved from 3,199MW in 2016 to 1,793MW in 2018. Two gas powered generators have closed down in 2018 and Moneypoint coal power station has suffered an outage. 

Generators shut down	Output MW
Aghada AD1 (gas fired steam turbine)	258MW
Marina (open cycle gas turbine)	95MW
Moneypoint (coal)	855MW
	1,208MW

In recent days, it was gas power, the UK interconnector and "other" generators (presumably peat and oil) that ensured the lights stayed on in the absence of Moneypoint and the above units. Renewables (mostly wind energy) varied between 7% and 27% so could not be depended on. Back up power stations are still essential in a grid with large amounts of renewables.

You can also see the importance of the interconnector with the UK (EWIC). Can the UK guarantee they will have spare capacity to export electricity to Ireland ? The black line below shows the profile for coal power in the UK in recent days. As you can see, they too were having problems with their coal units.

Scotland too is in a precarious position and will likely be reliant on imports from the UK over the winter period :

At the time of writing the Torness 2 and Hunterston 3 and 4 reactors were down, leaving Scotland with only 612 MW of nuclear capacity and only 3,900 MW of dispatchable capacity to service over 4,000 MW of demand. However, all three reactors are scheduled to restart by mid-December, and any shortfalls that might occur in the meantime could probably be covered by imports from England [Euan Mearns]

If we get a very cold winter, and there are indications that a cold one is coming, the already strained grid could come under a lot of pressure as demand increases. Couple this with more generator outages, and we could be in for some big problems. This is where the demand side of the equation would become crucial - essentially disconnecting large energy users from the grid who would have to rely on their own generation i.e. diesel generators or combined heat and power. 

Essentially, a return to the pre grid times of the early 1900s, when there was a large and inefficient diesel generator in most big towns in Ireland. 

Emissions Rise at Ireland's Power Stations Despite €6 Billion Investment in Wind Energy

One of the things consistently pointed out on this blog is that no matter how much wind energy you deploy, you can never shutdown a single power station. Those who advocate for more wind are slowly realizing this as more facts come out. 

Last year (2016), electricity demand in Ireland rose by about 2.3%.  An additional 600MW of wind was added to the system but the capacity factor (a measure of the annual output from wind farms) fell from 33% to 27%. Also during 2016 the limit on the amount of wind allowed into the system at any one time (non synchronous penetration) was raised from 50% to 55% and then at the end of the year to 60%. 

According to reports by the EPA, emissions and fuel consumption increased in eight out of the eleven power stations for which records were available for 2016. 

Six of these power stations were operated by gas, the other three by oil. Poolbeg (gas), Tarbert (oil) and North Wall (gas) power stations had the largest rises in emissions. Aghada (gas) and Tarbert (oil) power stations had the highest emissions since 2011, while Rhode power station (oil) had the highest since 2007.

Power station	Emissions Increase 2016 Vs 2015	Highest Emissions Since	Fuel Type
Aghada	72%	2011	Gas
Huntstown 2	19%	2013	Gas
Poolbeg	366%	2014	Gas
North Wall	249%	2013	Gas
Great Island	61%	Commissioned in 2015	Gas
Tynagh	70%	2014	Gas
Tawnaghmore	14%	2010	Light Fuel Oil
Tarbert	240%	2011	Heavy Fuel Oil / Light Fuel Oil
Rhode	93%	2007	Light Fuel Oil

Note the three oil run power stations at the bottom all had the highest emissions for many years.

Factors that lead to these increases were :

• The interconnector to the UK was out for four months at the end of 2016. This would partly explain the increases in Dublin power stations such as Poolbeg and North Wall.

• Electricity demand increasing by 2.3%. With new data centres on the way, demand will soon increase by much more than that. 

• Capacity Factor of wind dropping from 33% to 27%. It's an unfortunate fact that no matter how many wind farms there are, if there is no wind, you get no energy. Storage wont fix this problem either as the original energy source is still intermittent wind energy that can remain flat for months on end during periods of high pressure.

• The low price of oil and gas. 

• The low capacity credit of wind energy. Ireland now has 3,000MW of wind, but all these wind turbines cannot replace a single power station. All the power stations must remain on standby. An additional 600MW of wind was added in 2016, roughly a 25% increase on 2015. The only solution for this is nuclear. A nuclear power station can fully replace an existing power station and hence achieves much greater and much more consistent fuel and emissions savings in the long run than wind ever can.

How ironic that Ireland is now dependent on oil again for it's electricity needs after spending close to €6 billion on wind technology and another billion or two on grid upgrades to accommodate this wind. If this is not an indictment of the wind program, then I don't know what is.

Sources :

1) EPA Environmental Reports

http://www.epa.ie/terminalfour/ippc/index.jsp

2) Eirgrid Renewable Energy Curtailment Report 2016

http://www.eirgridgroup.com/site-files/library/EirGrid/Annual-Renewable-Constraint-and-Curtailment-Report-2016-v1.0.pdf

3) Cost of wind is estimated to be €2 million per MW installed.  

The Modern Economics of Electricity Generation - UK, A Case Study

Hundreds of millions of pounds worth of subsidies will be handed to highly polluting diesel-fuelled electricity generators, under plans to preventpower shortages over the next few years.Companies have registered to provide 4,000 megawatts of standby power under a government auction scheme designed to help the UK cope with the intermittent nature of wind and solar energy - The Times, November 2015.

In an article written by Irish Energy Blog last June, it was stated that: (The economics of electricity generation)

 So now, we enter into a new era of electricity generation economics where subsidies are required to maintain all generators, not just the renewables. 

This is precisely what is now happening in the UK. Due to the fact that they have invested heavily in non dispatchable renewable generation, they are facing a shortage in dispatchable generation - that is, generation available on demand. The quickest solution to this problem is to use diesel generators. But these diesel generators will be running intermittently and would not be economically viable.  So the UK National Grid will pay subsidies to diesel generator owners to maintain their capacity available on standby.

A similar situation is happening in Ireland where DSUs (demand side units) get paid capacity payments. There is now 160MW of these diesel generators in Ireland.

Had UK invested in dispatchable plant, like CCGT gas plants, they would now be using cheaper and cleaner more efficient forms of generation instead of diesel. Unintended consequences of the Green Energy Rush are now hitting home.

Emissions rise during March with increased use of oil generation as back up

Admin Note - There are a lot of diagrams in this blogpost once again but I believe they tell an interesting story so please bear with me. Apologies if you experience formatting problems - these are not intentional !

However, it is an unfortunate fact that the contribution to adequacy of additional amounts of wind decreases progressively and tends towards zero [ESB 2004]. 

Diagram 1 - All Ireland average wind penetration levels (Eirgrid)

We can see from the above diagram that average wind penetration for the month of March has nearly doubled since 2012. Let's see what impact this has had on the running of our electricity system. 

Diagram 2: Fuel Mix March 2012 (wind penetration 13%)

Diagram 2 shows the fuel mix for March 2012. Black represents coal, gas is yellow and green is wind. 
Gas is acting as back up to the intermittent wind. Given Ireland's generation capacity, this is the most 
efficient and cleanest form of back up. Hardly any oil generation was used.

Diagram 3 - Fuel Mix March 2013 (wind penetration 17%)

Diagram 3 shows a similar fuel mix as 2012 but with some oil generation (red shading at top)

Diagram 4: Fuel Mix 2014 (wind penetration 21%)

Diagram 4 again shows a similar fuel mix for 2014 but with small amounts of distillate 
(i.e. diesel) oil generation (light green shading at top) and heavy fuel oil (red).

Now we come to March 2015:

Diagram 5: Fuel Mix 2015 (wind penetration 24%)

You probably have noted that gas generation has become comparatively less and less 
each year as wind penetration increases. But what we see now in 2015, with average and 
maximum wind penetrations of 24% and 61% respectively, is significantly more distillate and 
conventional oil generation. This meant that emissions from conventional generators 
increased as "dirtier" inefficient oil replaced "cleaner" more efficient gas generation. 
Why did this happen ? Well, if we take a look at forecast and actual wind generation 
for a period in March 2015 it will give us a clue :

Diagram 6: Wind forecast and generation March 2015

The intermittent nature of wind is evident in Diagram 6. The red line shows forecast wind and 
it is clear that actual wind (blue line) failed to meet forecast wind on numerous occasions 
during this period.

Oil generators have a unique characteristic in that they are very fast acting, in Ireland it 
typically take eight minutes for them to reach full capacity, compared to say a gas generator 
which can take up to eight hours to start. But there is a trade off - oil produces more emissions 
due to its energy dense nature while gas, once the generator is up and running, produces about 
30% less nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide than oil. Gas plants are also much more efficient 
in terms of fuel consumption. So what has happened is that fast acting oil generators are 
stepping in to meet loss of supply due to unforeseen drops in wind power.

If we take a system with lower levels of wind penetration, like in 2012 / 13, we can see that 
gas generators can cope with these wind levels as sudden loss in supply from wind generators does 
not cause a major problem to the system. But we can see in Diagram 6 losses in wind generation 
of up to 400MW, which is akin to the loss of the largest power plant in Ireland. One might ask, 
but surely, there is reserve there for such a loss of power - well there is, but in my opinion, 
this would be reserved for the loss of a power plant rather than loss of wind power.

The conclusion from this is that the system can cope with wind penetration of circa 20% but as 
you go above this level, the benefits from wind energy diminish, as you have to back it up with 
fast acting higher emitting plant. I have long believed that we have reached saturation 
point with wind energy and this data confirms this. It is clear that an all wind strategy does 
not make sense.

While nuclear should be an option but requires a long term plan of itself, there is a simpler 
solution, that does not require back up oil plants, new pylon infrastructure or a new expensive 
Grid Code to accommodate high levels of unstable wind energy, to meeting our renewable 
targets - biomass. 

The below presentation gives a good summary of the benefits of this option :

http://rethinkpylons.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/BW-Energy-Irish-Wind-Policy-Time-to-Rethink-May-2015.pdf

While wind provides non dispatchable generation (incapable of been switched on when 
required), biomass provides dispatchable generation (can be switched on as required). 
This means that biomass generation can replace an existing power station (eg Moneypoint 
coal power station) and utilize existing grid structure. 

________________________________________________________________________
Other Data

For completeness sake, the below diagram shows March demand for the years 2012  - 2015. 
You can see that there was a couple of days where peak demand was higher in 2015 
(and also lower) but in general, demand was roughly the same and therefore does not 
account for the increased use of oil generation. 

More on the Energy Bubble

Figure 1: How generating capacity has increased since 2006. East West Interconnector included in 2013 and 2014, also Great Island CCGT included in 2014 and retired oil plant on same site taken out


The above graph, Figure 1, shows the levels of electricity generation capacity for the Republic of Ireland at the end of 2014. We are now approaching the 10 GW mark, the highest ever in the State. If you really want to know why your electricity bills are so high then you only need to look no further than the above graph. All the above power stations and wind farms have to be financed through our bills, even though we only use on average less than a third, and at peak times less than half, of this capacity in electricity. The key to understanding this graph is looking at the gap between the blue (average demand) and black line (total capacity including wind) and the red (peak demand) and black line in 2006 and then comparing this gap with the current gap in 2014 (See Figure 2). As you can see, it has gone out of control. Consider that back in 2006, when the economy was booming, there were no blackouts . The level of back up capacity was sufficient but now that we have over 2GW of wind, it appears that more back up capacity is required to maintain a stable and reliable system.

	2006	2014
Total Capacity / Average Demand	2.0 times	3.2 times
Total Capacity / Peak Demand	1.3 times	2.0 times

Figure 2: Total Capacity is now over 3 times that of average demand and double that of peak demand

There is an argument put forward by the Greens that this excess capacity will be required when everyone switches over to electric cars and electric heating systems as this will lead to a surge in average and peak demand. But there is a major flaw in this argument. You would still need enough dispatchable plant (i.e. plant that can be switched on and off at the touch of a button rather than when the wind blows) at least equal to the peak demand under this scenario, no matter how many wind farms there are. Otherwise, what would everyone do on a calm day like the 11th October 2014 ? Cycle the 10 or 20 miles or more to work ? Or perhaps wear extra woolly jumpers ? So you would still need to build more power stations to cover the surge in demand under this scenario and wind turbines would still result in excess capacity just like in the above graph.

Fuel Mix 2013 - another historic milestone

Figure 3: Fuel Mix 2013 with UK imports broken down into original fuel sources

Figure 3 shows that in 2013, Ireland used nuclear power for the first time. 2% of the electrons going into your electric socket in 2013 came from nuclear stations in the UK. I have broken down the power consumed here through UK imports into their energy sources and added that to the fuel mix provided by SEAI to arrive at the above chart. UK coal power accounted for 40% of our imports with gas at 25% and nuclear at 21%. The 10GW or so of UK wind provided just 6% of imports. So we are still very reliant on gas and coal power - almost 70% of the electrons entering your home in 2013 came from gas and coal power. (not including spinning reserves or back up generation)

But when we look at SEAI's original chart it tells an interesting story :

Figure 4: SEAI Fuel Mix 2013

While on the face of it, wind power did well, one has to put the output of a generator in the context of its generating capacity. The following table (Figure 5) shows the share of generating capacity each energy source had in 2013, so for example, gas plants made up 44% of the entire power plant and wind farm fleet in 2013.

Ireland's Power Generation Mix	2013
Gas	44%
Wind	20%
Coal	9.5%
Peat	4%
Interconnection	5.5%
Oil	12%
Hydro	2%
Pumped	3%

Figure 5: Generating mix 2013

Definitions used :

Grid Acceptance Rate (GAR): the rate at which when power becomes available from a generating source that it is accepted by the grid. So wind power has a grid acceptance rate of 1:1 because it has priority dispatch, meaning when wind power is available it is automatically taken by the grid. Gas has a GAR of between 1:0.8 - 0.9 because when wind becomes available it pushes gas off the grid. I will assume 1:0.85 for this analysis. Coal and Peat are assumed to have a GAR of 1:0.95 as they are occasionally pushed off by wind

Fuel / Capacity Ratio : the position of a fuel source in the fuel mix relative to its position in the generating capacity mix. So a fuel source that makes up 50% of the capacity and 50% of the fuel mix will have a fuel / capacity ratio of 1:1.

Gas power gave just over 1MW power for 1MW share of capacity so had a fuel / capacity ratio of 1:1. Peat gave over twice as much power as capacity (2:1) while coal gave approx 1.6MW power for 1MW capacity (1.6:1). It is no surprise that the highest emitting power sources produced the most power relative to their size. This is because coal and peat store higher concentrations of energy than other fuel sources having formed over millions of years. Oil power, representing 12% of capacity, had a negative fuel / capacity ratio because these plants were lying idle most of the time. Oil plant are mostly used for "peaking" , i.e. when peak demand goes above normal which doesn't happen very often nowadays. So it had a significantly low Grid Acceptance Rate (somewhere around 1:0.01), whereas gas, peat and coal had GARs very close to 1:1 (between 1:0.85-0.95)


So how did wind do? Well, it had a negative output relative to its share of capacity. It comes out at 0.8MW of power for each share of MW installed. This is despite it having priority dispatch i.e. when the wind blows, the power is taken straight away by the grid. So levels of other power sources - mostly gas, and sometimes coal and peat - are reduced when wind is available. Applying the above definitions, this means that wind had the best Grid Acceptance Rate of all fuel sources i.e 1:1, but had a negative fuel / capacity ratio of 0.8:1. So wind and oil came out the worst, but oil had the lowest Grid Acceptance Rate, whereas wind had the highest. What this shows is that wind is a poor storage of energy when compared to coal, gas, peat and oil and storage solutions cannot solve this problem, rather it simply transfers the storage of this energy from one hour to another. What is required is a renewable source that contains higher concentrations of energy


And herein lies the problem with wind energy - you can't run a reliable grid if you install power plants that almost always give a negative fuel / capacity ratio. If you install 1,000 MW of wind, and demand hits 1,000MW, the power from the wind will almost always be less than 1,000MW so you have a blackout. This problem means that wind energy can never replace conventional plant and so competitiveness goes out the window