Wind Taken Out of Government's Plans - NAMA for Wind Beckons

by Owen Martin

All Island Wind (in green) Vs Demand (in red) for the past two months - above and below graphs

The capacity factor for wind was 13% over the past two months according to data taken from Eirgrid's dashboard

There have been unprecedented low levels of wind energy in the past two months as the two charts above reveal.  The unusual hot and calm weather is due to a large area of high pressure in the Atlantic Ocean which is blocking the prevailing south westerlies :

High Pressure region in the Atlantic

Some green campaigners are saying that this is caused by "more energy in the climate" due to climate change, but actually in this case there is less energy. Cloudless skies, no wind, no rain, it looks like a climate devoid of energy to me. 

There is now around 4,500MW of wind installed on the island of Ireland, enough capacity to meet almost all summertime demand. However, as can be seen in the graphs above, wind has had a dire performance with a capacity factor of about 13% over the past two months. In other words, they've only performed at 13% of potential output. Historically, they have a capacity factor of 27% in Ireland. Most, if not all, wind farms will be making large losses. The longer this calm weather continues, the closer we get to a bailout for wind, or as Colm McCarthy put it, a NAMA for wind.

How much would a NAMA for wind cost ?

A megawatt of wind energy capacity costs somewhere in the region of € 1-2 million. So 3,500MW of wind (in the Republic of Ireland) would cost about  €5 billion to bail out. If we take a discount of about 50% for serviced debt and a haircut for shareholders, this means the cost to the taxpayer would be €2.5 billion.  This is roughly equal to the total wholesale cost in electricity bills, which comprise 50% of an average bill. So a NAMA for wind could cost the consumer about half of an average annual electricity bill.