Grid Costs Set to Rise to Meet 2020 Targets

Grid costs will cost households and businesses an additional € 354 million next year as part of a large rollout of grid and transmission networks. The Energy Regulator explains :

The five years from 2016 to 2020 will require continued investment in the transmission system and delivering ongoing infrastructure projects. The PR3 period was characterised by the initiation of a large scale infrastructure delivery programme in order to meet 2020 renewable generation targets

So the transition to the green economy doesn't involve dismantling of the existing fossil fuel system. Instead, it means adding capacity and grid infrastructure paid for by you and me. This is fast turning into a gravy train for whoever has the best idea for extracting more money from electricity bills, or in economic terms, a bubble. 

The same is happening elsewhere in Europe. In Germany, grid costs will soon rise by a whopping 45%-80% as network infrastructure struggles to keep up with all the additional capacity :

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/tennet-und-50hertz-erhoehen-netzentgelte-a-1113741.html

There is no going back now. We have committed ourselves to a crazy energy policy. No wonder the European Union is no longer as popular as it used to be.

Will The Lights Stay on in Ireland ?

A new report by the European Network of Grid Operators (ENTSOE) has shown that Great Britain may not have sufficient electricity generation capacity by 2020 to keep the lights on. This has a knock on affect here in Ireland where by 2022 it is envisaged that we will become more and more dependent on interconnectors.

ENTSOE have placed Britain at the highest risk level of grid blackouts in EU but state that expensive Capacity Mechanisms may prevent them from happening. For the layman reading, this is due to lack of investment in baseload generation - gas, coal, nuclear. Lack of sufficient baseload generation in UK means interconnectors to Ireland will lie idle (where Ireland is also strapped for reliable means of power to export to UK). 

Eirgrid this year published their generation adequacy assessments up till 2025. 

Take a look at the bottom section which excludes interconnection. Green means we have sufficient generation, red means we don't. By 2022, things start getting tight, by 2023 and 2014 we are in blackout territory, highly dependent on UK to send us spare power. 

Of course, we have spent billions on new wind farms. But as ENTSEO state :

The contribution of RES [renewables] for adequacy purposes is less than for thermal plant.

I've dealt with this concept before - capacity credit.  Wind farms don't keep the lights on, power stations do. 

There is a further problem for the Irish Grid operators - Eirgrid - and that is the new data centres that are been built around the country. They consume lots of power - Eirgrid estimate that if all the data centres that are contracted are built, they will add a whopping 1,700MW on top of peak demand of about 5,000MW. This would mean we get into the red a lot quicker. 

There is a quick fix to this, of sorts, and I hinted at it earlier - Capacity Mechanisms. This involves load shedding - paying factories large amounts of money to close for a period and / or diesel generation which can ramp up alot quicker than power stations. Ireland had about 60MW of diesel generation in 2014 (referred to as Demand Side Units), we now have 230MW ! And Eirgrid have said :

The capacity of Demand Side Units in Ireland has increased to 230 MW, and is set to increase further. 

How ironic that the green revolution, the de-carbonization of our grid, the clean, green future has lead to us using more and more diesel generation - the most polluting form of electricity production. And of course, our neighbours England are also going down this path. 

Incidentally, the data centres will have back up power in the event of widespread blackouts. No, not windmills, yes you guessed it - diesel generators. The new Apple data centre in Galway will have 18 generators with a total capacity of 288MW. The new green revolution is upon us !

Rising Costs of Stabilizing Irish Grid

Synchronous Condenser in Australia (Wikipedia)

As levels of wind energy increase, fossil fuel generators and other devices are been called on to provide stability services to the Irish grid to help prevent blackouts. Its a simple engineering fact that as wind energy increases, the grid loses inertia and the frequency of electricity sent to your home becomes more difficult to control. The frequency of the Irish grid is set at approximately 50 Hertz, give or take about 1 Hertz, and all our appliances will not run outside this small range. 

Large power stations have trip switches that deactivate generators when the frequency moves outside this range so if the grid loses inertia for even a few seconds, there will be a cascade effect as generators drop out. A widescale blackout is the likely result. The rotational speed of wind farms is changing all the time and at different regions and it's because of this that they can't provide inertia to the grid. Gas and coal power stations are classed as synchronous generators because they provide stability to the grid, while wind farms and the East West interconnector are deemed non synchronous generators (SNSP). 

At the moment non synchronous generators are limited to 50-55% penetration in the grid. It is envisaged that this will have to rise to 75% in order to achieve the 20-20 targets. A consequence of this will be less synchronous generators online during high wind periods and increased risk of blackouts. So synchronous generators need to be paid more to maintain stability through what are called ancillary services.     


The diagram below shows that these ancillary or grid stability payments increased from € 24.5 million to € 26 million in the year to April 2016. 

POR means Primary Operating Reserves and SOR Secondary Operating Reserves. POR can step in up to 5 seconds and SOR up to 15 seconds to replace a generator that suddenly drops out. Tertiary Reserves (TOR1 and TOR2) take longer to start but can be maintained for longer time. These reserves are set by the single largest generator that happens to be online at the time, usually the East West Interconnector. However, demand for fast reserves, which are inefficient and high emitters, is increasing with higher levels of wind as wind fluctuations dominate the grid. 

The largest increase was for Reactive Power services. These are mostly provided by synchronous condensers which are able to provide stability in times of large voltage changes due to stochastic wind energy. Engineers at UCD provide a good overview of these devices here.  

Like battery storage units, synchronous condensers are net consumers of electricity but are essential for keeping the lights on with high levels of non-synchronous wind energy.  Adding units that consume more energy over their lifetime that they can generate is a consequence of the wind program and should have been included in a cost benefit analysis, which as we know, was never done.

What about alternatives ? Well, biomass and hydro provide synchronous power as of course does nuclear power. But green lobby groups do not want these and wind lobby groups want us to install more wind, this time offshore. Surely, it's time we looked at other options.

Sources:

1) http://www.eirgridgroup.com/site-files/library/EirGrid/AS_OSC_Report_April2016.pdf

2) http://www.eirgridgroup.com/site-files/library/EirGrid/AS_OSC_Report_2014_2015_Nov.pdf

3) http://www.eirgridgroup.com/site-files/library/EirGrid/OperationalConstraintsUpdateVersion1_35_February_2016.pdf

4) http://erc.ucd.ie/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/IRC_P%C3%A1draig_Daly.pdf