KERRY’S ALREADY DISPROPORTIONATE SHOULDERING OF TURBINES COULD GET MORE ACUTE WITHOUT VITALLY-NEEDED NATIONAL GUIDELINES ON THE FUTURE OF WIND ENERGY, WRITES JOHN O’SULLIVAN
IRELAND’S 40 per cent Renewable Electricity target is likely to be achieved in the short term by wind farms that already have planning permission, but are not yet built.
For the first time, Eirgrid has quantified the installed renewable electricity generation capacity required to achieve the 40 per cent target which is between 3,900 and 4,300 MW and secondly, Eirgrid also states that the renewable electricity generation capacity already built and installed is 3,150 MW.
To achieve the 40 per cent target, approx 500 turbines generating 1,000 MW are required to be installed in the country.
To put the prospects of achieving or exceeding this target into perspective, Kerry alone has 200 turbines permitted, not yet installed, to generate roughly 400MW.
Of those, 113 are currently under construction in Kerry, according to Kerry County Council’s own figures as of last May.
Based on replies to Freedom of Information requests from four west coast county councils, details of the number of turbines granted planning permission, but unbuilt, are not available.
This needs to be verified by a higher authority. This essential information requirement is a main finding of the report.
Is Ireland continuing to accept new planning applications without knowing the generating capacity that has already got planning and remains unbuilt? These planning permissions are typically of 10 years duration with extensions of duration being given.
Government Policy has not put a ceiling on the number of wind farms to be allowed in the country or in any particular county.
This results in an imbalance of developments into rural areas with 70 per cent of wind generated electricity being generated by six west coast counties.
At the extreme of this trend is North Kerry, a landmass roughly a quarter of its county large but currently producing 10 per cent of the entire nation’s wind-generated electricity.
This is with only half of the total number of turbines (270) that have planning permission in North Kerry actually installed.
The vital electricity export capacity is a bottleneck, the essential increase of interconnector capacity needs to be actively considered in the short term to match the pace of the wind turbines being rolled out.
When the 40 per cent target renewable generated electricity of 4,300 MW is achieved, it is possible that renewable generated electricity will frequently exceed demand (at night-time, demand falls to 2,500 MW - Eirgrid Smartgrid Dashboard) requiring much increased export capacity.
We are currently exporting 500MW of excess electricity every night to the UK mainland which is the maximum capacity of the sole interconnector at present.
This is before we reach the 40 per cent target level of renewables generation.
If the excess electricity cannot be exported, it will probably be necessary to compensate producers for having to switch off turbines. This becomes more serious if the 40 per cent target is over achieved.
Such excess exported renewable electricity production is highly-subsidised electricity currently costing €70 per MW while the benchmark cost is €45 per MW (according to the Commission for Energy Regulation’s figures for this year and next).
In return, Ireland receives electricity from the UK, so we are paying a subsidised high rate for electricity for export while receiving cheaper electricity in its place.
Consideration of the possible impacts of wind farms on Ireland’s €5Bn Tourism industry are just coming to the fore as the prevalence of wind farms increase.
The cost of electricity to the consumer will increase under the present 15-year Public Service Obligation (PSO) subsidy as the proportion of Ireland’s electricity generated by renewables increases.
Meanwhile, the cost of the PSO levy paid by the consumer in 2017/18 is approx €460 million, figures released by the CER reveal.
In 2008 Eirgrid budgeted to spend €4 billion in taxpayers’ money by 2025 in extending the electricity transport network, increasing the carrying capacity with new high-powered pylon lines in order to transport the substantial increase in wind generated electricity to the east of the country and to new interconnectors for export.