Interconnector to UK providing just 4% of peak demand due to capacity shortage in the UK

With the UK Grid operators today resorting to emergency measures to keep the lights on, Ireland imported much less than usual from the UK during peak demand at 5.45pm. The interconnector has a capacity of 500MW which would normally be running at full load, or near full load, during periods of high demand.

But today, during the peak demand period, the interconnector ran at just 176MW or 35% of capacity.

This amounted to just 4% of our energy demand needs.

Last year, Irish Energy Blog warned this may become a problem if the existing capacity shortage in the UK remained :

But it is interesting that Eirgrid have taken no account of the situation in the UK where National Grid recently stated that Britain's spare capacity has fallen to a seven year low, prompting emergency contingency plans to be put in place such as shutting down large factories during peak periods.
Surely in this climate, where the UK National Grid are considering restricting demand in their own country, they will also be reviewing exported power to Ireland via the two interconnectors ? 

And it's not just the interconnector that is running at low output - our windmills were running at 1% for most of the day :

Same situation in UK and France:

UK wind output (blue line)

French Wind Output - providing just 2% of demand

So we are back to the "Do Nothing" Scenario - relying on our old power plants like we used to before the Green Blob raised its ugly head.

While we will have to pay a bit more for electricity generated here than we would have to pay if we imported it from the UK, it will still be cheaper than if it was generated by wind power.

But still our leaders insist that wind power and interconnectors are "the future". 

IWEA told us two years ago that fossil fuel prices were rising

More wind on the system will provide a hedge against rising fossil fuel prices, resulting in lower and more stable energy prices for consumers while helping us achieve our energy and emissions targets - IWEA, 2013, Submission to Tipperary County Council.

In 2013, the Irish Wind Energy Association told us that wind would provide a hedge against rising fossil fuel prices.

But last time I went to the petrol pumps, fuel was so cheap, I was able to fill up my tank for the first
time in many years.

However, when my last electricity bill came through the door, I was barely able to pay it.

Why do our Government continually listen to people backing the wrong horse ?

Michelin Factory closes due to high energy costs

News today from RTE, as predicted on this blog, more job closures due to high energy prices :

Michelin has announced plans to close its tyre factory in Ballymena, Co Antrim, with the loss of 860 jobs.

The company said it will "run down" the manufacturing plant by mid-2018 as part of a restructuring plan that will see investment in its facilities in Dundee and Stoke on Trent.The announcement comes a year after another major employer in Ballymena - the JTI Gallaher tobacco factory - announced plans to close its operation in the town by 2017, with the loss of around 870 jobs.

The factory in Ballymena opened in 1969.

Managers have been warning for a number of years that high-energy costs were making production increasingly unsustainable.

"Despite great efforts and progress being made in previous years, other European plants are still more competitive than Ballymena.

Back in 2013, the company installed a 4.6MW wind farm on site to try to cut energy costs :

Dale Vince, Ecotricity founder, said: “Building wind power on-site and supplying it directly to a factory not only cuts carbon emissions, but because you don’t need to transport the electricity via the grid – it cuts energy costs too.

“This is a way to make businesses more competitive and more environmentally sustainable at the same time.”

Onsite Wind Energy – pioneered by Ecotricity and known as ‘Merchant Wind’ – ensures that electricity is channelled direct to the end user, while any excess energy not used on site goes into the local Grid.

Wilton Crawford, Factory Manager at Michelin Ballymena, said: “The wind turbines are a welcome asset for Michelin in Ballymena, and will help alleviate the challenge of increased energy costs, particularly as energy prices in Northern Ireland far surpass those in Europe.”

Ecotricity’s two turbines at Michelin’s Dundee site have already produced well over 43 million units (kWh) of energy since being commissioned in 2006: that’s enough electricity to power over ten and a half thousand average homes, keep an iPad going for over 3 and a half million years, or drive an electric car (Nissan LEAF) around the equator over six thousand times.

 However, as they have now learned, wind power is too intermittent to provide reliable power to a factory.

South Australia - What A Future With Wind Energy Looks Like

Interconnectors and Wind Energy go hand in hand. Like South Australia, Ireland has had bad experiences with interconnectors. The Moyle Interconnector linking Scotland and Northern Ireland went out of action in 2011 and since then only half of its capacity is working. Wind energy, as we all know, is intermittent and cant be relied on to produce power when needed. Hence, why it is given a very low capacity credit. So if you combine the two you are asking for trouble. S.Australia experienced a blackout yesterday - here is what a "Green" future looks like :

“We’ve always relied to some degree on the Victorian interconnector — that’s why it’s there, it’s been there for 25 years.

“Many times other supply will kick in and there’s always stuff on standby, but in this case it may well have been the size of the load.”

When the Victorian system shut down, 160 megawatts of energy was lost and wind power did not supply energy because it often does not start until 3am.

Mr Roberts said when outages were planned, people on life support were notified.

But last night’s blackout “caught everyone by surprise”, despite the fact Victoria had issued a low level risk notice for a power outage for the past seven weeks.

Mr Roberts said a review would be conducted into the widespread outage.

Is the writing on the wall for the NREAP?

An update on the precarious legal position of Ireland's Renewable Plans from The Law is My Oyster Blog is available here (Thanks Neil ! ) :

http://the-law-is-my-oyster.com/2015/10/30/is-the-writing-on-the-wall-for-the-nreap/

Emlagh Wind Farm - Capacity Credit too low to make it worthwhile project

Kells - an important Irish town both culturally and historically

Emlagh Wind Farm is a 120MW wind farm, consisting of 47 turbines, planned for North County Meath. It is sited near the historic town of Kells, an area of unique cultural and historic heritage, that attracts many tourists each year. Kells is most famous of course for the Book of Kells which dates back to the 6th Century.

The benefits from the proposed wind farm would have to be very significant to justify it's imposition in such an area. A decision on the wind farm was due in late September but An Bord Pleanala have delayed this until November 26th.

Capacity Credit 

The best way to measure the value of a wind farm is by calculating it's capacity credit. This is the equivalent amount of conventional power plant that can be shutdown as a result of the new wind farm. It is used by Eirgrid to measure the contribution from a new generator to generation adequacy.

In Eirgrid's Generation Adequacy Report for 2009 – 2015 they noted :

“Although the expected large growth of installed renewable capacity will increase portfolio diversity, it will only offer a limited contribution to generation adequacy.”

The intermittent nature of wind means that the contribution of wind power to generation adequacy is significantly less than its installed capacity. When considering the generation adequacy of wind as an energy source, wind is given a lower “capacity credit” than conventional thermal generation, primarily because of its intermittent nature. 

The capacity credit curve for wind used by EirGrid in the Generation Adequacy Report 2009 – 2015 is presented in the below Figure:

 

Figure 1, the capacity credit attributable to wind declines with increasing installed wind capacity. The capacity credit for Wind Power Generation (WPG) was predicted by EirGrid to decrease from 19% in 2009 to 12% by 2015 as illustrated in Table below:

Table 1: Wind Capacity Forecast and Associated Capacity Credit

	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
Installed Wind Capacity (MW)	1248	1429	1723	2017	2231	2606	2900
Capacity Credit (MW)	234	250	274	294	313	329	344
Capacity Credit as % of Installed Capacity	19%	17.5%	16%	14.5%	13.5%	12.5%	12%

From Table 1 above, it can be seen that Emlagh Wind Farm will have a capacity credit of 12.5% in 2015 (total capacity has not reached predicted 2015 levels). At an installed capacity of 120MW, this then represents a contribution to generation adequacy of just 15MW (equivalent to just 3-4% of a conventional gas plant). This means that should there be a security of supply issue in Meath or the surrounding region, then new conventional plant will need to be built to keep the lights on, despite the large investment and environmental impact of this wind farm.

The following statement made by the Emlagh Wind Farm developer in their Environmental Impact Statement then, is completely at odds with the accepted method of accounting for wind farms in the energy industry:

“Should the wind farm not be developed, fossil fuel power stations will be the primary alternative to provide the required quantities of electricity. This will further contribute to greenhouse gas and other emissions, and hinder Ireland in its commitment to meet its target to increase electricity production from renewable sources and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Ireland currently imports up to 85% of our energy. Emlagh Wind Farm offers Ireland an indigenous form of electricity, and provides for security of supply against our dependence on imports.”

But when measured scientifically, the wind farm will not be an alternative to fossil fuel power stations. Instead, a duplicate system will be required, with a need for new transmission infrastructure running alongside existing lines to be built - one powered by fossil fuel, the other by wind (when available). 

A contribution of 15MW for 47 turbines is a very poor benefit given such significant environmental (and indeed economic) costs.  

Storing The Wind

Would storing wind power sort out the intermittency problem ?

One of the solutions offered for wind intermittency is storage. Let's take the recent calm spell, which was interspersed with very high winds, to see if storing wind would balance out the variances and lead to a more stable predictable electricity supply.

Let's remind ourselves of what the recent wind output looked like (Figure 1) :

Figure 1: Raw wind power which is what we have at present

We can see from the 23rd to 30th September, there was some very high wind output, and again at 4th till 7th October. This was interspersed with a very calm spell lasting a couple of days. After the 4th, there was a long period of poor winds lasting about 12 days.

So what would happen if we balanced out this wind variation to provide more stable constant output ?

Assumptions

There are a number of storage options - pumped storage, battery or compressed air. For this study, I assume a 500MW storage device is built and 1MW of stored power produces 1MW output when needed at all times. As far as I know, only pumped storage can provide this type of reliable storage. My understanding is that a battery produces less output when it's stored power is running low than it does at full charge i.e. the 1MW you put in does not produce 1MW 20 days later.

The other assumption made is that once wind power goes above 500MW, the surplus power is stored. When wind goes below 500MW, the storage device makes up the difference to bring output back to 500MW. Only wind power is stored.


Results

In a perfect world, this would result in a constant wind plus storage output of 500MW. However, as you can see below (Figure 2), there is a blip in the storage output at around 3 days in on the 25th September. But output really hits a brick wall on the 1st October, at 9 days in.

Figure 2: Output from a storage unit powered solely from wind

At this point, there is a sudden drop in power from 500MW to 335MW and then to 11MW that lasts a full day as stored power runs out. Then we get reliable output for the next four days but the battery runs out again on the 6th October (two weeks in) and we are once again at the mercy of the wind. At one point it reaches 5MW. This lull in wind and storage power lasts for 12 days.

On the 18th we get good winds again and the battery begins re-charging but the problem is you can't use this power when it was most needed i.e. a couple of weeks prior. 

Figure 3 shows the contribution of the wind plus storage unit towards demand. The storage unit actually comprises 2,500MW of wind and 500MW storage, so 3,000MW in total. For 3,000MW of capacity, as you can see, you only get very small amounts of power out - about one seventh or 15% of peak demand - when the unit is running at full output i.e. 500MW. This compares very badly with gas powered stations (or indeed coal, biomass or any dispatchable plant) which could power 85% of peak demand for the same amounts of capacity.

Figure 3: Contribution from the storage unit towards demand

To add further insult to injury, you still get unreliable and intermittent amounts of power for large portions of the month - 43% of the time in this scenario. So we are back to square 1. 

Conclusions

Storage doesn't work. There are simply too many calm days to make it a reliable worthwhile solution. It's no wonder the Spirit of Ireland proposal, now dropped, intended to use grid power to move water uphill, rather than raw wind power.