Emissions Rise at Ireland's Power Stations Despite €6 Billion Investment in Wind Energy

One of the things consistently pointed out on this blog is that no matter how much wind energy you deploy, you can never shutdown a single power station. Those who advocate for more wind are slowly realizing this as more facts come out. 

Last year (2016), electricity demand in Ireland rose by about 2.3%.  An additional 600MW of wind was added to the system but the capacity factor (a measure of the annual output from wind farms) fell from 33% to 27%. Also during 2016 the limit on the amount of wind allowed into the system at any one time (non synchronous penetration) was raised from 50% to 55% and then at the end of the year to 60%. 

According to reports by the EPA, emissions and fuel consumption increased in eight out of the eleven power stations for which records were available for 2016. 

Six of these power stations were operated by gas, the other three by oil. Poolbeg (gas), Tarbert (oil) and North Wall (gas) power stations had the largest rises in emissions. Aghada (gas) and Tarbert (oil) power stations had the highest emissions since 2011, while Rhode power station (oil) had the highest since 2007.

Power station	Emissions Increase 2016 Vs 2015	Highest Emissions Since	Fuel Type
Aghada	72%	2011	Gas
Huntstown 2	19%	2013	Gas
Poolbeg	366%	2014	Gas
North Wall	249%	2013	Gas
Great Island	61%	Commissioned in 2015	Gas
Tynagh	70%	2014	Gas
Tawnaghmore	14%	2010	Light Fuel Oil
Tarbert	240%	2011	Heavy Fuel Oil / Light Fuel Oil
Rhode	93%	2007	Light Fuel Oil

Note the three oil run power stations at the bottom all had the highest emissions for many years.

Factors that lead to these increases were :

• The interconnector to the UK was out for four months at the end of 2016. This would partly explain the increases in Dublin power stations such as Poolbeg and North Wall.

• Electricity demand increasing by 2.3%. With new data centres on the way, demand will soon increase by much more than that. 

• Capacity Factor of wind dropping from 33% to 27%. It's an unfortunate fact that no matter how many wind farms there are, if there is no wind, you get no energy. Storage wont fix this problem either as the original energy source is still intermittent wind energy that can remain flat for months on end during periods of high pressure.

• The low price of oil and gas. 

• The low capacity credit of wind energy. Ireland now has 3,000MW of wind, but all these wind turbines cannot replace a single power station. All the power stations must remain on standby. An additional 600MW of wind was added in 2016, roughly a 25% increase on 2015. The only solution for this is nuclear. A nuclear power station can fully replace an existing power station and hence achieves much greater and much more consistent fuel and emissions savings in the long run than wind ever can.

How ironic that Ireland is now dependent on oil again for it's electricity needs after spending close to €6 billion on wind technology and another billion or two on grid upgrades to accommodate this wind. If this is not an indictment of the wind program, then I don't know what is.

Sources :

1) EPA Environmental Reports

http://www.epa.ie/terminalfour/ippc/index.jsp

2) Eirgrid Renewable Energy Curtailment Report 2016

http://www.eirgridgroup.com/site-files/library/EirGrid/Annual-Renewable-Constraint-and-Curtailment-Report-2016-v1.0.pdf

3) Cost of wind is estimated to be €2 million per MW installed.  

Meentycat Wind Farm

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.