SEAI Discover Jevon's Paradox

SEAI release more poor quality energy information

SEAI released some press releases in the past few weeks which were published without question by most of the Irish media :

In 2014, wind generation accounted for 18.2% of electricity generated and as such was the second largest source of electricity generation after natural gas. Without wind in 2014, power generation related CO2 emissions would have been 16.2% higher. (This includes accounting for the ramping and cycling of fossil fuels plants associated with supporting wind generation.)

Renewable electricity generation in 2014, consisting of wind, hydro, landfill gas, biomass and biogas, accounted for 22.7% of gross electricity consumption.

Without renewables, power generation emissions would have been 23% higher.  

Joe Wheatley's research has shown that for each kWh of wind generated, associated emissions and fossil fuel savings are 0.54 kWh due to increased ramping and cycling of gas plants.  So if Wind generated 18.2% of electricity, the power generation emissions would have been 9.8% higher, not 16.2%. 

• The carbon intensity of electricity generation fell to a record low in 2014 of 457 grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour of electrical output, half the level in 1990.

• Renewable energy use continued to grow with 23% of electricity now from renewables, this resulted in the lowest ever carbon content of electricity generation.

The implication is that renewables were the biggest contributor to this reduction in carbon intensity. In fact, the East West interconnector (EWIC) was a more significant contributor. The interconnector provides about 8% of Ireland's electricity but is dispatchable, which means a power station can be pretty much closed down and replaced fully by EWIC. In this case, one of the CCGT power stations in Huntstown has been lying idle since the EWIC has come into use. Our 2,500MW wind fleet can never do this as it's capacity credit is too low.

EU regulations dictate that carbon emissions are counted in the country of origin, so emissions from electricity imported from the UK are counted in the UK, not Ireland, even though we use the electricity here.

We didnt have any interconnectors in the 1990s. We also had a higher percentage of oil generation which has been mostly replaced by cleaner gas. This is another significant factor in the reduction of our carbon intensity. Attributing it all to our renewables is not technically correct.

The upshot of all this is that the Government are basing long term energy policy on the likes of the above information released by SEAI. The last time Government based long term policy on bad information was during the Celtic Tiger when ESRI informed long term economic policy.

And we all know how that ended..........

Analysis by Dr Fred Udo challenges accuracy of SEAI report

The reduction of CO2 emissions by Irish wind energy

Last year, SEAI issued a (revised) report on savings in the Irish system due to wind for 2012. I pointed out in a previous post that some of the assumptions they used resulted in greater CO2 savings than would have been the case in reality.

Dr Fred Udo has done an excellent analysis on this report, using more valid assumptions than the ones used in the SEAI report. He concludes that :

1. SEAI admits there is increased fuel use due to the insertion of wind power in the grid.
2. The authors try to minimize the efficiency losses by inflating the use of OCGT in the reference case.
3. The CO2 calculation used in the PLEXOS model (used by both SEAI and Eirgrid) produces too low CO2 intensities, hence even the 30% loss found in the corrected calculation is too low.
4. Corrected for self-energy (the energy required to build a new generation system around wind) we find a loss of 40% (from SEAI's calculated savings) for 15,3% wind penetration.

Dr Udo makes the distinction between a system with lots of hydro, like Denmark, and one without. Hydro is an efficient back up for wind as it can be turned on and off instantly, while gas generation loses its efficiency with increased amounts of intermittent wind. Yet, the Irish government continue to draw comparisons between Ireland and Denmark.

The full report can be read here :

http://www.clepair.net/Udo20150831-e.html

An open letter to SEAI

Sustainable Energy Association of Ireland are currently preparing a strategic plan to 2020. Submissions, in the form of responses to 4 questions, can be sent in here by 30th June 2015 :

http://www.seai.ie/SEAI-strategic-Plan-post-2015-Public-consultation/

I have been sent the following superbly written response which sets out the path that Ireland now needs to follow to put Ireland's energy policy on a proper sustainable footing. The defintion of sustainable is :

able to be maintained at a certain rate or level  

e.g. "sustainable economic growth"

As this blog and other commentators have shown, the current energy policy is anything but sustainable and will in fact, lead to another economic crash.

An open letter to SEAI

by David Whitehead. BA(Mod. Nat.Sc.)TCD, FIMMM, C.Eng.

Question One – What are the key issues facing SEAI in developing its strategy to 2020?

• Reorienting SEAI's focus from its politically correct and Green ideology motivated by Eamonn Ryan and re-focus it firmly on  the needs  and tolerances of Ireland’s  population and its reasonable requirement  of an efficient, reliable, affordable and fit for purpose energy sector. 

• Defining what "sustainable energy "  means in  the framework Ireland's future energy needs and  in the context of macro-scenarios bounding the limits of Ireland's social and economic futures, 

• Defining the requirements and constraints and  developing Ireland's energy sector in a socially cohesive and economically rational  strategy in balance with the country's  scale and population and in which environmental impact is managed in a socially cohesive manner respecting the fact that the environment is a social good and not the property of the State and its Agencies and  is neither regarded  as "untouchable" nor a parish pump political no -go area.

• Abandoning the pretence that Ireland can make anything other than a meaningless, but economically and socially damaging, symbolic gesture in the context of " decarbonisation" . If we ceased emitting all CO2  tomorrow the effect on global CO2 emissions would be overcome by the growth of GHG in China and India in less than a few months. 

• SEAI should acknowledge  that the  impact  of   any Irish energy strategy on global temperature will be below the detection limit.

• Developing a national energy management strategy that is based in the actual physical, technological, manufacturing, knowledge and economic realities of a small geographic entity with limited population and natural resource base rather than pandering to politically correct, but  currently fashionable  ideology. 

• SEAI should recognise that as Ireland and the  EU enacted the National Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP)in  breach of the Aarhus Convention,  REFIT and other subsidies to the Renewable energy  industry may constitute illegal state aid  are of questionable legality and  enforceability.

• Recognising that so long as Irish electricity generation is largely based on fossil and biomass thermal technology Electric vehicles  will exacerbate rather than mitigate CO2 emissions  and are thus only justifiable on economic grounds if energy prices are supportive and if air quality is threatened by  vehicle exhaust  in large urban areas. Recognising that freight vehicles are large contributors and unlikely candidates for electrification. 

• Limiting the addition of unnecessary, intermittent, non-despatchable generating capacity  to the national generating fleet which already has significant overcapacity and which contributes to grid instability and escalates cost to consumers.

• Abandoning the irrational strategy of simultaneously planning to increase generating capacity and decrease demand especially as the wind  sector's requirements for smart metering, grid extensions and inter-connectors is politically, economically, socially and environmentally unsustainable.

• Developing a vision and  strategy in which meeting consumer needs  at affordable prices, promoting social, cohesion  and respecting  environmental  and economic constraints are the proper   motives of SEAI  rather than pursuing transient  ideological, "green" and  politically motivated  objectives.

• Recognising that Ireland's construction industry, consumer demand and economic affordability are the prime drivers of building energy conservation initiatives and not SEAI. 

• Developing internal and  external SEAI and consumer awareness that many so-called renewable and energy saving devices require the supply and use of materials either themselves toxic ( mercury in low energy light bulbs) and/or create  hazardous toxic waste problems in  disposal and in supplying countries ( samarium, neodymium, lithium etc.). The increased use of technologies requiring these materials is not environmentally sustainable  even if the impacts are outside Ireland.

Question two – Is SEAI’S current vision understandable and relevant?

• SEAI’s current  vision is not  relevant to today’s world and is not understandable other than in the context of the Green  Party’s political agenda in the previous government. SEAI must articulate  a vision which meets the values  and the present and future needs  of the taxpayers of this country and supports  its industries and investors and recognises that affordability and reliability are more relevant to them  than any hypothetical impact on global average temperature. To the extent that such a vision supports  exploitation of  genuine external opportunities to the benefit of SEAI's funders ( the taxpayers) it may do so. It should not be driven by low-carbon solutions as Ireland's GHG emissions are insignificant on any scale. 

Question Three- have you had any recent interaction with SEAI?

• I  once applied for a position on the SEAI board. 

Question Four- Have you any suggestions for SEAI to consider in developing its strategy?

• Reposition SEAI in  the realities of this country, its people, its energy needs, its constraints arising from the social and economic mileu and the environmental and social impact.  Stop attempting to become a world leader in developing green and low carbon solutions for the Irish energy sector  unless there are clear opportunities that better resourced entities can not reproduce. 

New Report by Dr Fred Udo - Wind Turbine Build-outs and CO2 emissions in Ireland

Dr Fred Udo, a distinguished engineer from CERN in Geneva, now retired, has published a new analysis on the Irish electricity system. In his previous report (link here), he used CO2 emission data from Eirgrid to show the inefficiencies created in the system by adding more wind.     In this latest report, he uses fuel input data from SEAI to show that the Eirgrid data actually underestimates CO2 emissions by about 6% and therefore the losses referred to in his previous report were too low.

The conclusions are really a damning indictment of the energy policy that resulted in such huge investment in wind and interconnector infrastructure. There is also an added sting in the tail - the investment of billions of Euros in new CCGT plant that could consume fuel more efficiently than before has been pretty much a waste because they have been forced to run inefficiently.

The performance of the system in 2011 shows clearly, that without the extra windmills and without the EDW link, but with the new CCGT gas units operating one does better than with all the new wind turbines and EDW link.

Link to view Dr Udo's Report :

https://www.scribd.com/doc/258476475/Art-Wind-Ireland-pdf

Also, a link for download :

http://www.filedropper.com/artwindireland

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