We must learn from terrible calamity engulfing Lone Star state

Renewable energy is not always available when needed and the Government is in denial about our future need for gas, writes Conor Skehan

TEXAS has recently experienced a disastrous state-wide loss of power that has resulted in huge economic disruption and loss of life. Could this happen in Ireland?

The Irish economy is fast approaching an energy bottleneck. EirGrid is warning: “By 2026, a deficit of capacity is forecast in all scenarios except the Low Demand forecast.”

This is a critical warning about a shortage that will begin in five years, because energy projects normally require a period of between eight and 10 years to allow for design, permitting, procurement, construction and commissioning.

In the middle of this unfolding crisis, Ireland has embarked on an ambitious plan to decarbonise the Irish economy by 2050.

There are two fundamental problems.

The first is that promises to electrify cars and home heating will increase electricity demand at the same time that supply will be falling due to the loss of conventional power plants — because of a combination of age and unacceptable use of fossil fuels.

It is important to place electricity generation into the context of overall energy use. This will become increasingly important because of policy to electrify the economy.

This will mean that current large end-users of energy will quickly migrate from the general energy budget into the electricity budget — causing significant increases in electricity demand at a time of growing deficit.

Examples include policy proposals to have 936,000 electric cars on our roads by 2030 and to phase out residential oil and gas boilers from nearly a third of Ireland’s 1.7 million occupied homes and replace them with 600,000 electric heat pumps. A second, even bigger, issue is that the proposed new weather-dependent renewables will be able to supply energy only intermittently — when the wind blows or the sun shines.

In energy jargon this means that renewables are not ‘dispatchable power’ because they are not always available when needed.

All of the main renewables will always need to have an equivalent amount of energy available from conventional sources.

This is why Texas had such a huge problem. The conventional power sources — especially natural gas — were unable to supply enough electricity to make up the shortfall due to the loss of renewables.

Gas from Kinsale is finished and Corrib will supply only around 20pc of Ireland’s annual gas demand in 2025.

Ireland will have no indigenous natural gas supply after 2030. Government policy to cease exploration for natural gas means that all future gas will need to be imported or manufactured after 2030.

All of Ireland’s gas imports arrive through a single route between Ireland and Scotland at a time when the UK’s North Sea gas supplies are also diminishing. All international energy agencies point to Ireland having a severe energy security vulnerability because of this single supply — especially after Brexit.

Gas is a critical component of Ireland’s electricity generation, producing 52pc of the country’s annual electricity requirement in 2018. Renewable energy will not change this, yet Ireland has no plans for future natural gas importation or generation use. Government policies are in denial about the future need for gas.

Current proposals by renewable energy advocates are to supply energy deficits without natural gas by using very large-scale increases in unproven energy storage, as well as other novel thermal fuel sources. The world’s biggest battery to date, currently in construction in Australia, has a capacity of 300 MW/450 MWh and can power half a million households.

For an hour.

None of the proposed solutions to the need for energy from sources other than renewables is currently capable of supplying power for the equivalent of the national strategic oil energy reserve of 90 days — as required by national legislation and international rules.

The Government’s plan to meet the required level of emissions reduction by 2030 proposes that the country will increase electricity generated from renewable sources to 70pc.

This statement is remarkable for what it omits. The proposed energy increases will need to be matched by the same amount of dispatchable electricity to meet demand when, like Texas, these renewables are inevitably and regularly unavailable.

To achieve this target by 2030, Ireland will need to build an additional 1,400 MW of non-renewable generating capacity every year from now until 2030, with a significant amount required by 2026 to avoid the energy deficit forecast for that year.

This is the equivalent of building the largest existing power station on the island each year for the next 10 years. Such projects normally take at least eight years from conception to commission — and even longer in our current situation of almost guaranteed judicial reviews of large projects by environmental advocates.

To its credit, Gas Networks Ireland has published an ambitious plan to show how gas generation and distribution can meet much of the challenge set by Ireland’s Climate Action Plan.

An unprecedented energy deficit will occur in Ireland by 2026 because of insufficient electrical generating capacity. Energy realism is urgently required in policy and planning to recognise the reasons for the rapidly emerging supply constraints, specifically:

•A lack of dispatchable electrical energy during periods of unavailable renewables;

•An unwillingness to plan for the continued need for gas in our energy future;

•Increasing demand for electricity for cars and home heating.

Gas, from whatever source, will account for more than 90pc of Ireland’s electricity generation at times of very low renewables generation in all future scenarios.

Affordable and reliable energy will be a critical requirement in all future scenarios.

Energy transitions require a recognition of Ireland’s need to rapidly deploy large-scale gas-based energy generation. These will probably need to be at locations that already have existing concentrations of electrical infrastructure.

All of these transitions will require types of planning and delivery that ensure solutions for these needs are provided in the short, medium and long term by those that have the capacity to effectively execute plans.

Current patterns of behaviour by Government, agencies and utilities suggest there is little acceptance of the urgency needed to address these issues, nor the likely effects of inaction on the wider national economy.

Solutions to this urgent and critical issue are likely to emerge only through a whole-of-government approach that is implemented in partnership with major energy third-party suppliers, as well as with the involvement of the major energy user groups.

We need to urgently wake up and admit that Ireland has committed itself to energy policies that are both unrealistic and harmful. Policies must be altered to ensure that Ireland’s future energy supplies are not just environmentally sustainable, but also economically and socially secure and resilient.

Our current policies are already causing real economic harm and need to be urgently revised to align with reality.

We should not need a weatherrelated calamity like Texas to wake us from sleepwalking into disaster.

‘Ireland has committed to unrealistic and harmful energy policies’