Meentycat wind farm is the largest wind farm in Ireland at 88.5MW. It is owned by Airtricity and located in Donegal about 20 miles from the sea in a hilly area. So it's very well located to take advantage of Ireland's best wind resource.
The following wind maps confirm that it is in one of the best locations in Europe :
It was built in 2004, with an extension in 2009, and consists of 38 2.3MW Siemens wind turbines. According to data from SEMO, it had a capacity factor of 31% in 2015 i.e. it generated on average 31% of its maximum output over the year. It operated for 88% of the time, i.e. roughly 9 hours in 10.
However, as can be seen from the below charts, the wind farm was generating between 0% and 2% for 18% of the time and 10% or less of it's output for around a third of the time. For just 1 hour in 10, it operated at a capacity factor of 75% and above.
Capacity Factor
|
Frequency
|
0% - 2%
|
18%
|
10% or less
|
36%
|
25% or less
|
53%
|
75% or more
|
10.5%
|
Another way of looking at these figures is that for around a third of the time, the wind farm operated at between 26% and 74% of its max output, equivalent to the same amount of time it operated at less than 10% capacity factor. So there is an equal chance that the wind farm will generate mid range amounts of power as it will tiny amounts. There is greater chance (18%) that it will generate none or next to no power as it will very high amounts of power (10.5%).
So we can see that this is wind energy at it's optimum performance. Presumably, results would have been slightly better when it was first installed. Certainly, it's capacity credit was higher then, as there was much less wind farms (capacity credit is it's contribution to generation adequacy and is sometimes referred to the amount of conventional plant that can be decommissioned as a result of the new wind farm without posing a risk to security of supply. Capacity credit tends to decrease with the more wind you add).
If there is a case for wind farms in Ireland, then it's within that dark blue line only in the map above and should have been restricted to around 1,100MW. The wind industry and government are fond of telling us that "Ireland has the best wind resource in Europe" but actually that only applies to a small portion of the island and is comparative to Scotland and North Denmark.
So we can see that this is wind energy at it's optimum performance. Presumably, results would have been slightly better when it was first installed. Certainly, it's capacity credit was higher then, as there was much less wind farms (capacity credit is it's contribution to generation adequacy and is sometimes referred to the amount of conventional plant that can be decommissioned as a result of the new wind farm without posing a risk to security of supply. Capacity credit tends to decrease with the more wind you add).
If there is a case for wind farms in Ireland, then it's within that dark blue line only in the map above and should have been restricted to around 1,100MW. The wind industry and government are fond of telling us that "Ireland has the best wind resource in Europe" but actually that only applies to a small portion of the island and is comparative to Scotland and North Denmark.
