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. 

Lifespan of a Gas Turbine

 According to Siemens a gas turbine is designed to run for 40 years with maintenance every 3 years as this video explains:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj3a1e901Uk

The gas turbine in Whitegate power station was severely damaged last December when a small piece of metal broke loose and damaged the blades. The turbine was installed in 2010. So it is unusual that the turbine would be so severely damaged after just 10 years. 

Zero Carbon Here We Come

 

There has been much news lately about the prospect of blackouts during the winter most notably by the Sunday Business Post. Huntstown and Whitegate gas power stations are both out of action, as is Tarbert diesel power station. There is also uncertainty around Moneypoint coal power station and the East West Interconnector although at the moment Moneypoint is running flat out. Coupled with the extra demand from data centres this means that some form of blackouts or "load shedding" (cutting off certain parts of the country for short periods to balance supply and demand) is quite likely this winter. However, the situation is changing rapidly and the latest is that Huntstown and Whitegate will be repaired by October / November. My own gut feeling is that it may be an over reliance on the UK Interconnector that finally puts us in the dark. Yet another coal powered station has been demolished over there, Ferrybridge in Yorkshire, which at a capacity of 2000mw was possibly the largest power station in Europe. 

Anyone who has been following this blog will know that I have been predicting this situation for many years. Whitegate is only ten years old and is a modern combined cycle gas turbine (ccgt) station. It appears that the turbine has suffered serious damage from a tiny piece of metal that broke loose. It's difficult to attribute this to anything in particular but CCGT is the most efficient form of generation and there are concerns that operating them intermittently (to backup wind) will increase the wear and tear of the gas turbine. A bit like running your car in heavy traffic is less efficient than on a motorway. Huntstown has a problem with a transformer which could happen at any time. 

The bigger issue here is that wind energy, no matter how much is installed, cannot replace a power station. So we are left in the dark when things go wrong with traditional generation despite spending billions on them. We have a bloated electricity sector, one of the most costly in Europe, yet one that is prone to regular amber alerts. 

How did this happen? Quite simply, because of target based policies. Meeting targets is the only option on the menu. There is no room for good judgement and balanced decision making. It is rule by the target setting bureaucrat and the box ticker that has got us into this mess. 

Targets for biofuel means dead orangutans. 

Targets for agriculture means the destruction of the amazon.

Targets for heating means importing German peat briquettes. 

Targets for electricity means blackouts. 

Ireland's Temperature Records shows Winter and Spring Cooling

 While there is much furore of late about global warming, the reality in Ireland is that during the first 5 months of the year there was actually much colder weather than average as can be seen in the temperature records from Met Eireann below. LTA here refers to the long term average for 1981 to 2010. It shows significant cooling in January and May, enough to cause a concern nationally but so far I haven't seen any. It shows the mistakes that can be made by solely relying on ipcc reports. In this case, the mistakes could be very costly for people's lives and impact on hospital admissions (a topical subject at the moment) . 

If Ireland's climate is becoming cooler then that means we will need more reliable heating sources and more reliable energy generators than other countries. However, our leaders are moving in the opposite direction with bans on fossil fuels. 

MACE H	J	F	M	A	M	Total	diff
2021	5.7	6.6	7.7	9	9.9	38.9
LTA	6.8	6.7	7.9	9.3	11.6	42.3	-3.4
VALENTIA
2021	6.3	7.7	8.4	9.1	10	41.5
LTA	7.3	7.2	8.1	9.3	11.5	43.4	-1.9
BALLYHAISE
2021	3.3	5.7	7.3	6.6	9.5	32.4
LTA	4.9	4.9	6.5	8.2	11	35.5	-3.1
OAK PARK
2021	3.9	6.1	7.6	7.1	9.7	34.4
LTA	5.1	5.6	6.9	8.4	11	37	-2.6
MALIN HEAD
2021	5.1	6.1	7.5	7.3	9.4	35.4
LTA	5.9	5.8	6.8	8.2	10.3	37	-1.6
MOORE PARK
2021	4.4	6.3	7.5	7.4	9.8	35.4
LTA	5.7	5.8	6.9	8.6	11	38	-2.6
MT DILLON
2021	3.4	5.9	7.6	7.1	9.5	33.5
LTA	4.7	5	6.5	8.3	10.9	35.4	-1.9

Ireland Still Over Reliant on Fuel Imports Despite Investment in Wind

 The Government's latest move to ban new oil and gas exploration comes at a time when Ireland has become extremely vulnerable to any supply line issues in post Brexit UK, where we import almost all of our fuel requirements from.  One would have assumed that this issue would have been taken into account in any decision to ban oil and gas exploration but this doesn't seem to be the case. The words import, dependency, UK or supply do not even appear in the Government briefing. As things stand, it is left up to commentators like me (unpaid I might add vs the civil servants and ministers who have had payrises) to draw attention to the facts and risks of the current situation. 

Here is a graph of the annual net fuel imports since 2010, when the National Renewable Energy Action Plan took effect. All data comes from the SEAI so is easily available to Government advisors.

           Source SEAI, Units are in ktoe

Its fairly clear that up until 2016, when the Corrib Gas field came into operation, we had barely reduced our fuel imports. It's also very notable that during the ten years to 2019, wind energy has made very little impact on imports. Around 3,000MW of wind energy was installed during this time. The rationale for wind has always been the reduction of fossil fuel imports. 

So the very thing that has made an impact on reducing fuel imports, gas exploration, will soon be banned, while the failure of wind energy to dent imports in any meaningful way will continue to be ignored and the policy pursued anyway. 

A recipe for disaster no doubt. 

The Consequences of Losing the Irish Language

 by Eoghan Ó Mhartaín

I've always regarded the Irish language as only being of cultural and historical value. However, having recently stumbled across the old Irish meaning for the very common place name "The Derries", I now realise that by not speaking Gaelic we have lost a valuable connection with our land. The Derries was the name given to a group (or islands) of oak tree stumps found in bogs. This comes from a reprint of a book originally printed in 1844 which itself refers to an earlier work by surveyor David Aher from 1814. It is not known whether the name was expressive of the existing condition of the bog or a traditional remembrance passed down through the generations from when there once was an oak wood that flourished in the bog. 

This brings me to Derrybrien. The official Irish name for Derrybrien is Daraidh Braoin which could mean the wet oak wood or the leaking oak wood or perhaps the last part refers to the surname Braoin or O'Brian. However, if Derry refers to the usage popular in early 1800s Ireland, then Derrybrien might actually mean the wet bog or the dripping bog. Braonach means dripping or wet.  

In light of this interpretation, it would have come to no surprise to anyone in a Gaelic speaking Ireland, that building a large industrial sized wind farm in the hilly and peaty regions of Derrybrien or "Wet Bog" would have ended up in disaster as the destructive 2003 landslide proved to be.

More recently, the landslide that occurred in Meenbog would have been equally as foreseeable as the name means "soft mountain pasture". 

Are Vaccines Working ?

 On the face of it, yes, they are. About 25% of the population of the UK has now being vaccinated and the data does show a decline in covid cases and deaths since January. 

However, a similar decline in cases and deaths can be seen in Ireland which has only 6% of it's population vaccinated :

Of course, we may not know for sure until UK actually opens up again.