Peak Winter Demand Arrives

Things get a little bit shaky !

 Last night at 5.30pm, the electricity grid hit peak demand for All Ireland at 6,638MW - not far off Record peak demand of 6,878MW reached on December 21st last year.

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But total system generation was only 6,106MW leaving a shortfall of 532MW.  

Wind energy was low most of the day, only 380MW or about 7% was available for the whole island at 5.30pm.

The two UK interconnectors saved the day with combined imports of 450MW. There was still a shortfall of about 80MW, made up presumably from demand side units. These would comprise mostly of diesel generators and combined heat and power units. These units are "non-centrally monitored" according to Eirgrid and are not included in these graphs.  

Of course, that damned Brexit lot across the sea with their dastardly nuclear power charged us handsomely for the imported power, at € 2,000 a MW. 

To give some credit to the Irish grid operators, they were correct to build the East West interconnector as it is making up for the once efficient gas plant that have been prematurely wrecked from backing up the wind. One just hopes that the UK will have sufficient power to give us on those cold winter nights over the next few months. 

Whitegate and Dublin Bay Power Stations Trip

 850MW of generation lost last night

Both Whitegate and Dublin Bay gas power stations tripped last night a few hours after I had published about the return of Whitegate power station. Dublin Bay appears to be back this morning but Whitegate is still offline. This shows the precarious nature we are in. It now means we are dependent on a not too dependent interconnector and wind system. 

There is no reason given for the outages. It's possible that the loss of one power station can trip another but whether this is what occurred last night I do not know. 

Whitegate Gas Power Station back in Action

 Whitegate power station has in the past hour returned to operation after nearly 12 months out of action due to a turbine fault. It is expected to return to full commercial operation tomorrow. A small loose bit of metal caused significant damage last December to what is a very sensitive piece of equipment. It was due back at the beginning of November. The return of the 444MW power station comes just at a good time as the weather has turned cold and demand is rising. Also imports from the UK  and wind energy appear to be very low in the past few days. 

Back in July, the Energy Regulator warned that power stations have become less reliable due to extreme operational requirements that they were not designed for during periods of intermittent wind. 

Is the Covid Vaccine Working ? (Part 2)

 The covid vaccines do not seem to be having the same impact as previous vaccine rollouts such as the MMR vaccine :

Source : https://www.bmj.com/content/330/7500/1119

Introduced in October 1988, there was a 90% vaccination rate for children in the UK, similar to the rate of the covid vaccine here in Ireland. The impact is apparent in the sharp fall in rates of infection in the following years. 

Saving the Amazon not on the COP26 Menu

 I had a quick look at the objectives of COP26. The main ones are - lower emissions, stop coal, more EVs, more renewables, protect only those ecosystems affected by climate change and printing more money.

The biggest environmental problem in the world today is the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. The leading cause is cattle ranching. Banning the importation of Brazilian beef until the destruction stops would help save the rainforests. 

But that is not on the menu at COP26. The modern environmental movement is not fit for purpose.

Precarious Winter Outlook

According to the Eirgrid Winter Outlook, the Irish electricity system will be operating at twice the level of acceptable risk this winter. The system is expected to enter the Alert State at times of low wind, low interconnector imports and low temperatures. No mention is made of Huntstown or Whitegate power stations. Are they assumed to return as expected? We are not told [update: it appears that Huntstown will be back later this week]. 

There are a number of engineering realities that are laid bare in the report that are a sobering read and at odds with the endless spin that has been published in the past in the media about green energy. 

•  Only 9% of total wind energy capacity is deemed as reliable or can be relied upon. 

•  Forced outage rates (the rate at which power stations are breaking down) have increased by 5 times over the past 5 years. This would appear to indicate that these power stations cannot cope with higher levels of intermittent wind energy.

•  Some CCGT (gas) plant is scheduled to be unavailable for 5-6 weeks of the winter period because of scheduled maintenance. This will be in November and early March. There is no guarantee that wind energy will be available during these weeks and, hence, the highest risk of blackouts will occur during these periods. This proves that wind energy cannot replace, nor is it equivalent to, a power station. 

There is also another factor which does not seem to be included in this report. Wind farms, like power stations, also need maintenance - in particular, the older fleet. Whilst it is unlikely that a significant amount of them would break down at the same time, sourcing replacement parts may take more time than normal in the present supply chain crisis. 

This is the first time that Eirgrid have published a winter outlook that warns of a high risk of blackouts. Last year, they were concerned about a trend of "increasing demand, dispatchable generation exiting the market and increasing generator forced outage rates". 

They were correct, that trend has continued into this year. Did anyone listen or take note ? Of course not. But then Eirgrid's own chief, Mark Foley, dismissed concerns about blackouts, saying  people can sleep soundly in their beds this winter.  

We must trust the plan. 

Daylight Fuel Robbery

An independent TD has brilliantly summed up the ongoing theft of motorists by the government :

"if you fill your car with €100 of fuel today, the shopkeeper who works in the shop and has people and wages to pay gets just €3.90, the companies that operates the refineries and drills the oil and deliver it all around the country gets €34, and the government who sits in the dail and have nothing to do with producing or supplying the fuel gets a whopping €54"... This has got to change.

https://youtu.be/xcpL1ppH6xo