Ireland: 50% of electricity supplied by wind power, at times

[Mr. Sparkle]

Last edited Fri Mar 23, 2012, 02:29 PM - Edit history (2)

Ireland passes renewables milestone

Friday, March 23 11:06:10

EirGrid, the company responsible for planning and operating the transmission system has today, said that Ireland has passed a key renewable milestone.

Speaking at the IEWA Annual Conference, EirGrid Director of Operations Fintan Slye announced that that the island of Ireland now has over 2GW (Giga-Watts) of installed wind capacity on the system.

That is enough power capacity to supply the needs of up to 1.3 million households on the island, depending on weather conditions. This is compared to just a quarter of that capacity connected a decade ago.

According to Fintan Slye, "Ireland and Northern Ireland have huge renewable energy potential and EirGrid is committed to ensuring this potential is developed throughout the island as a whole. We now have over 2GW of installed wind and are at times operating with wind supplying 50pc of the total demand on the island, one of the highest percentage renewable energy penetration levels of wind on any power system. Meeting our 2020 targets will mean that, at times, the amount of wind energy being generated in Ireland and Northern Ireland will be up to 75pc of total demand. This increase of wind on our system has required extensive innovation and planning and further changes will be required to meet the challenges that 75pc of wind penetration brings in areas such as system stability, resource flexibility and altered power flows."

"EirGrid is responding to these challenges in a number of ways; though the planning and development of transmission infrastructure, increased interconnection and the development of smart grid technology. This flexibility and innovation is creating positive results. I note and very much welcome the comments made by the Minister for Communications, Mr. Pat Rabbitte TD, when he opened this conference yesterday, where he highlighted the need to deliver critical infrastructure in order maintain a viable and effective market."

http://www.businessworld.ie/livenews.htm?a=2923865;s=rollingnews.htm

old article http://renews.biz/story.php?page_id=73&news_id=1631

[GodlessBiker]

1. Go green!

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. I'm afraid that’s not true

http://www.eirgrid.com/media/Annual%20Renewable%20Report%202011%20-%20Hi%20Res.pdf

…

Last year was another important year for the integration of renewable electricity in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Against a backdrop of continued economic difficulty, a combined 270 MW of wind generation was installed in Ireland (218 MW) and Northern Ireland (52 MW) since our last report in September 2010, bringing the total installed renewable generation on the island to 2262 MW. While it is acknowledged that the rate of yearly installed wind will need to increase in order to reach the approximately 5100 MW of wind generation that is needed to meet the 40% renewable electricity targets (North and South), a number of the building blocks for achieving the targets are now materialising.

…

It is estimated that the level of installed wind generation in 2020 will be enough to meet around 37% of electricity demand across the island. In percentage terms, this is greater than any other synchronous region in Europe over this timeframe. While the majority of the 40% renewable electricity target will be met from wind generation, our work does not stop with wind. There is ongoing work to develop a better understanding of the potential for integrating other renewable sources, such as ocean energy technology, biomass and waste-to-energy plants.

…

At the end of September 2011, Ireland had 1585 MW[small]⁹[/small] of installed wind generation, 237 MW of hydro power and 46 MW of smaller renewable sources[small]¹⁰[/small], enough renewable generation to contribute to 15% of overall electricity demand[small]¹¹[/small]. At particular time intervals, wind has produced enough power to meet 50% of electricity demand, and has even reached a high of 37% of total daily electricity demand. EirGrid and SONI are now managing instantaneous penetration levels of non-synchronous variable wind generation above 40% more often than ever before (see pages 25-26), putting us in a world-leading position for managing high levels of wind generation on a synchronous power system. It is important to note that due to low wind conditions, however, wind only provided 10% of system demand in 2010[small]¹²[/small].

…

(From January 1st through October 24th of 2011, wind was responsible for ?40% of “instantaneous wind generation” a total of 293 hours, and if my quick glance through the figures is right, ?50% a total of 60 hours.)

[Mr. Sparkle]

3. sadly you are correct. The orgional article was heavily edited press release ..

that left out some important facts, notably "at times".

yet , I am still very impressed that they are aiming to have 40% of energy from renewable's by 2020.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. Yeah, I think it’s great.

I just wish people wouldn’t overstate the good news.