More Gas Power Stations to be Built

The government have issued a policy statement on security of electricity supply which states :

• the development of new conventional generation (including gas-fired and gasoil/distillate-fired generation) is a national priority and should be permitted and supported in order to ensure security of electricity supply and support the growth of renewable electricity generation

This amounts to an admission that the renewable programme has failed. Imagine if a smoker said I will need to smoke more just to support my attempt at quitting smoking. They would rightly be ridiculed.

 

• it is appropriate that existing conventional electricity generation capacity should be retained until the new conventional electricity generation capacity is developed in order to ensure security of electricity supply

Many years ago on this blog I warned that wind energy would never be capable of replacing a power station. Here we have an admission that Moneypoint coal power station and Tarbert oil power station cannot be replaced by renewables. So what is the point? Henry Ford's model T replaced the horse and cart. The telephone replaced the telegram.

The same government banned gas and oil exploration and of course a coal mine would never be allowed to open again in Ireland. So what will all these fossil fuel power stations run on in the new energy scarce future ? Hot air? Wishful thinking? Empty platitudes? Virtue signalling? Of those, we have plenty. 

Energy Regulator - Existing Generating Fleet has become less Reliable

The energy regulator, in a recent Oireachtas Committee meeting, explains that what this blog has consistently warned for many years would happen has now come to fruition - that power stations have become less reliable as a result of excessive ramping up and down to back up wind :

Coming into the past winter, winter 2020-21, we had our seasonal update with EirGrid. We have a winter outlook and a summer outlook. That involves EirGrid, ourselves and the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications. In this we identify short-term challenges. These included an uptick and increase in demand from a range of sectors, which would have included data centres and the economy recovering or starting to recover post Covid. Separately, we noticed a reduction in the reliability of the existing fleet. Some of those pieces of the fleet that are of medium to older age are being asked to turn up and turn down more frequently as they balance the wind. They are being asked to do things they were not designed for, so the reliability of some of the existing fleet has decreased a little.

https://www.kildarestreet.com/committees/?id=2021-07-06a.349&s=whitegate#g368

This was something that was not factored in to any of the assessments of wind energy. But reality doesn't change by ignoring it. 

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.

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.

Replacing Moneypoint Coal Power Station - Real World Example

By Owen Martin



Moneypoint coal fired power station was built in 1985 and has been operating ever since, making it quite possibly one of the most successful capital projects ever in Ireland. It has three generating units, each with a capacity of 285MW, making it the largest single power station in the country (total output 855MW). All three of the units suffered forced (or unexpected) outages this year. This blog article will look at what happened when the final unit went offline on the 26th September at 11pm. 

Firstly, it is important to point out that Moneypoint is required to be on load (or online) at all times to support the 400kv network from the West to the high demand centre in the East (see graph here).  This means that when Moneypoint is no longer operating, something else must be ready to instantly step in to replace it. 

It is often claimed that renewables can replace Moneypoint. On the 25th September, wind energy was at very high levels at over 2,000MW. But during the 26th, it declined steadily to below 500MW. Prior to the Moneypoint outage, wind began rising again reaching around 700MW at 11pm. So between 70-75% of wind power  had dissipated within twenty four hours. By the 29th, it had fallen to almost zero. Wind energy's intermittency is one of the main reasons why it can never replace a power station. Just when wind energy was needed the most, it was not able to deliver.

There is another more technical reason why wind cannot replace a power station which is explained in more detail here. In short, a certain amount of conventional power stations must be kept running to maintain a stable grid.

We can see in the below graph, that the back up plant that replaced Moneypoint was Tynagh gas powered station (CCGT) in County Galway.

Like any gas powered station, Tynagh can be switched on and off as required i.e dispatchable. An interactive presentation of the gas and steam turbine is available here. Since replacing moneypoint, the plant has itself tripped three times with the latest trip due to "high exhaust temperature". 

Mechanical faults are common to both fossil fuel and renewable plant, the crucial difference is that intermittency only occurs with renewables. The above staggered profile of Tynagh (in red) is very similar to that of another gas plant - Great Island, which you can see in a previous post on this blog. It could be that ramping the generator up and down like this leads to mechanical problems.

A recent report by Dublin City University titled "Is Natural Gas Essential for Ireland's Future Energy Security"  stated :

In contrast, we argue that by far the best way to address both Irish energy security and the pressing need for rapid decarbonisation is to constrain and reduce energy consumption (through efficiency measures and/or absolute reductions in energy services) and to directly exit from the use of all fossil fuels, including natural gas, as quickly as is safely feasible, replacing them by indigenous zero- or (potentially) negative-carbon energy resources to the maximum possible extent.

The recent closure of Moneypoint and it's replacement by Tynagh gas powered station shows that even with large amounts of renewable capacity available (in this case wind), back up gas powered stations are still a necessity for the foreseeable future. 

New Gas Plant Suffers Outage

The Waterford power station will be out of action till the end of the year

Great Island combined cycle gas powered station (CCGT) was commissioned in 2015. The power station is one of the most efficient in the country and replaced the older fuel oil plant on the same site in County Waterford.  On 25th October, it suffered a forced outage, and is expected to be offline till the end of December. Since Moneypoint is also offline at the same time, these are testing times for Eirgrid, the system operator. 

The power station has a capacity of 464MW, which leaves a capacity margin of 1,329MW from now until the week before Christmas when it's expected that two of the coal powered units at Moneypoint will be back online.

This will be the lowest capacity margin in recent years (the capacity margin is the proportion by which the total expected available generation exceeds the maximum expected level of electricity demand, at the time at which that demand occurs).  This blog recently reported that only 10% of our 2,000 or so wind turbines can be relied on over the winter period to deliver reliable power and therefore it will be fossil fuels that will be required to keep the lights on. 

It is difficult to say exactly what may have caused the outage. It can be seen in the graph below that the power station was being cycled a lot in recent times which may have added to the wear and tear on the generator's turbines.