128% Increase in Oil Generation Last Year

 While there was much hullabaloo recently in the media about a 4.5% reduction in emissions last year, there was no mention at all about the reversal in the trend of oil generation.  Oil generation was  mostly phased out of electricity generation in the 2000s and replaced with efficient ccgt gas generation. However, 2019 saw a 128% rise in oil fired electricity generation, mainly due to Tarbert power station in Kerry which runs on heavy fuel oil. 

With Moneypoint coal power station running much less last year (almost 70% less),  the official story is that wind and gas were able to fill the gap left by the loss of Ireland's largest power station, but in truth Tarbert power station only 2km away across the River Shannon, was also important in keeping the lights on. 

Oil fired generators are fast acting, they can be switched on very quickly, but are less efficient and more polluting than modern gas power stations. This blog predicted many years ago, as did  experts like Pat Swords, that more wind energy would result in more fast acting generators such as oil to balance the grid. Hence, emissions savings from wind would be offset by increasing reliance on oil. 

The 128% figure comes from a new EPA report, page 11 :

https://www.epa.ie/pubs/reports/air/airemissions/ghgprovemissions2019/EPA-Prov_GHG-Inventory-Report-1990-2019_final.pdf

SEAI Discover Jevon's Paradox

The Electrification Paradox

It is hard to determine exactly what the Government's long term strategy for electrification is. Like a lot of their energy policies, it is very incoherent and full of inconsistencies. Take Eirgrid's new initiative to reduce peak demand by compensating households to switch off :

EirGrid has launched a competition to identify a company who will pay householders to reduce their energy consumption at high demand times. This is one of the first times a transmission system operator (TSO) has run such a competition.  This pilot project will benefit up to 1500 householders, who will see their annual electricity bills cut by up to €100 by participating in this scheme.The competition is open to companies who will work with homeowners and EirGrid to provide a service known as “demand response”. Demand response enables electricity customers temporarily reduce their electricity consumption in response to requests from EirGrid, resulting in savings on their bills.In Ireland, businesses and industry can already do this; however, it has not been available to homeowners until now.The goal for EirGrid is to manage demand on the national grid and give homeowners more control over their electricity bills. Fintan Slye, Chief Executive, EirGrid, said: “This is a really exciting development in the electricity market. We often hear about “Smart Grids” and their benefits – this is it in reality - technology innovation that puts money back in people’s pockets.  Any measure that helps reduce overall demand on the grid, while not affecting our daily lives at work and at home, can only be a good thing in the long term.”

The reason they need to do this is because so much of our electricity is set to come from intermittent sources, mainly wind. If you have an intermittent source, then demand must also become intermittent i.e. dependent on the weather.

But the Government's Plan is to increase rail electrification in the future :

Rail electrification substantially reduces the use of fossil fuels in public transport. There has been significant progress with the introduction of DART and LUAS, and the recently published Capital Plan 2016-2021 [40] provided for further such public investment in the Greater Dublin Area. Further rail electrification will be a priority in future capital plans.

This will have the opposite effect, substantially increasing demand for electricity during peak demand times when people are leaving work. So people travelling home on an electric train will get paid not to switch on their cookers and other appliances when they arrive home. But the demand due to increased rail electrification will far outweigh the reductions from Eirgrid's demand side measures. This means that more dispatchable power stations will be required, most likely from fast acting fossil fuel sources such as gas or oil, to ensure that when a train is due to depart, it actually does so.

As noted on this blog before, no proper analysis has been done on this in terms of emissions or fuel saved. If we ran more efficient gas plants, with gradual ramping to meet gradual increases and decreases in demand, would we have more or less savings than one with a system that used wind energy and fast acting inefficient gas and oil plants as back up ?

And if you took the billions been spent on new energy infrastructure and invested that in passive houses and energy efficiency, you would most likely have a lot more savings than the current plans.

But if you don't do the calculations and allow ideology take over, as during the Celtic Tiger, then you are doomed to fail.

‘The Cloud’ Bytes Back - how Data Centres will cost Ireland dearly

Guest Post By David Hughes B. Arch CPMA, RIAI RIBA 

Cloud computing is now part of everyday life. From streaming services such as Spotify and Netflix to search engines and email from companies like Google and Yahoo to online storage services like DropBox… ‘The Cloud’ is both everywhere and yet seemingly invisible.

However in spite of its name, ‘The Cloud’ has some very earth bound needs and truly massive energy requirements. In fact, somewhat aptly, ‘The Cloud’ has overtaken world aviation in terms of its overall energy demand. 

These days Ireland seems to be a preferred location for the cloud’s physical footprint - data centres. These data centres will not simply serve Ireland’s data needs but the needs of all of Europe and beyond. This multiplies their energy impact on Ireland enormously and when you analyse the consequences, it is hard to see any silver lining.

To give an example Apple are seeking permission for a 240MW data centre in Athenry Co. Galway, which will create up to 215 jobs. The electricity consumption of this data centre will be the same as 420,000 Irish homes. This is ¼ of all Irish homes or every single house in Dublin City, Dun Laoghaire, Fingal and South County Dublin combined. Basically, the electricity needs of 1 Million people.

Electricity is a very expensive and capital-intensive form of energy. For every kWh coming out of a socket 2.7 kWh of Primary energy needs to be inputted at source. The transmission and distribution infrastructure or ‘grid’ is also massively expensive. This cost is ‘socialised’ and can account for 75% of a domestic electricity bill.

Cost Benefit Analysis?

As a society we may accept such costs to provide a benefit to 420,000 homes but is it really justifiable to socialise the same demand again for only 215 jobs? And Apple is only but one data centre.

Facebook’s 108MW centre will only create 40 jobs and use the energy of 180,000 homes.

In fact in total 1,000MW of data centres are projected for Ireland so on a pro rata basis will use the same energy demand as every home in Ireland.

40% Renewable Commitment.

In 2009 Ireland made a commitment to generate 40% of electricity from renewables. If we add this level of extra demand this makes that target much harder to achieve.

Last year the EPA stated that in relation to our 20:20:20 targets, we are only likely to achieve reductions of between 5% and 12% instead of the full 20% required. The SEAI calculates that the fine for this could be €1.6 Billion per annum.

The full 1,000MW of data centres could add 37% to overall electricity demand and will make our renewable targets proportionally harder to reach, the fines even higher again and last but not least will undo all of the CO₂ savings to date.

In the end, trying to chase this growing demand from data centres, will spawn further Wind Farms, Pylons and Transmission lines and will leave the Irish with a second  ‘Universal Social Charge’ this time for either paying an EU fine or paying for the ‘grid’ or both.

Time for a Debate.

Given these figures it’s time for a debate on ‘The Cloud’ in Ireland. Are the numbers of jobs created in anyway justified in terms of its energy demands?

The responsibility seems to fall between a myriad of different agencies and departments pursuing different agendas but each with a focus too narrow to look at the bigger picture. As a result to date, data centres have slipped through the net unchallenged.

We are at a cross roads in terms of whether we follow a route of demand reduction or increase, however ‘The Cloud’ could create the perfect storm and sink Ireland into decades of legacy costs for very expensive and unnecessary electrical infrastructure, which could be just as painful as paying back the inflated property prices that lead to the bank bailout.

Why aren't we investing more in Energy Efficiency ?

On the 3rd June, 2015 the Department of Energy held an Energy stakeholder conference at Dublin Castle. There was a very interesting contribution from David Hughes of Passive House on energy efficiency which can be viewed here at 1:16 :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r9fKZUvPNk

There is a technical limit (50%) on the amount of wind that can be allowed into the system so it stands to reason that if we are on a trajectory to reduce demand to keep in line with EU targets on energy reduction that we cannot continually grow the amount of renewables as it becomes surplus to requirements.

The mechanism for funding energy efficiency has been very poor. To date, total expenditure has been € 137 million, whereas the payments to wind farms in one year has been € 500 million.

So if we reduce demand, the limit for wind penetration decreases and we need to curtail and dump more wind. It therefore makes absolutely no sense to install more wind farms, and instead we should be directing investments for wind and REFIT into retrofitting instead. Investing in energy efficiency also alleviates the need for new grid infrastructure.

So the question has to be asked why are we not doing this ?

Could it be that the authorities prefer higher bills to lower bills ?  Are they afraid of reducing the electricity market pie for investors ?

If so, this is a serious breach of political responsibility towards its citizens and the future of this country and amounts to a hi-jacking by corporate interests over the public interest.

You can also find in the above video contributions from Val Martin on the legality of NREAP and John Dooley on the diminishing performance of wind turbines, regular commentors on this site.   Mr Duggan from the Irish Academy of Engineering asked the pertinent question of what they intend to do about oil depenedency, considering it provides over 50% of our energy consumption.

The complete inadequacy of the responses to all these important issues raised shows that Ireland's energy policy is a closed shop at the Department of Energy. It is only certain interested parties who are allowed an input into its direction. The first contributor at the conference, Sheila O'Brien, made this point quite well (along with an interesting point about the displacement of hydro by wind).

Public Participation, this is not.