What will Ireland's Electricity mix look like in 2030 assuming
- Demand will increase by the amount Eirgrid predict
- 2030 will be an hour by hour weather copy of 2023.*
- We will build the wind turbines we say we will.
- Solar and battery trends keep going as they have for over a decade
- The grid can handle the new power sources + demands
The code for this projection is here.
* obviously the weather in any hour of the year won't be the same as that hour in 2023. But by copying a year you get to see how wind and solar peak and lull in an accurate way. Combining more years into an average loses the 'what happens if its dark and calm for a week' accuracy of copying one years weather.
At the moment Ireland gets a lot of wind power. But all the white here under the black line is met by fossil fuels and imports. How much white under the demand line will there be in future?
As wind, solar and battery roll out the amount of fossil fuels and imports needed decreases.
To take one example with these trends continuing in June 2030 Wind and Solar cover a lot of the power needs. With Battery holding enough to smooth out gaps
On a day view of the year you can see solar has started to cover a lot of low wind times.
and by 2033 continuing trend growth of Solar really would start to cover a lot of demand
| year | demand_twh | solar_twh | wind_twh | waste_twh | battery_used_twh | unmet_twh |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 39.7 | 1.0 | 13.7 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 24.9 |
| 2024 | 41.2 | 1.4 | 16.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 23.7 |
| 2025 | 42.9 | 1.9 | 19.1 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 22.0 |
| 2026 | 44.6 | 2.6 | 22.6 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 20.0 |
| 2027 | 46.4 | 3.6 | 26.6 | 2.0 | 0.3 | 17.9 |
| 2028 | 48.2 | 4.9 | 31.4 | 4.3 | 0.6 | 15.7 |
| 2029 | 50.2 | 6.8 | 37.1 | 7.9 | 1.0 | 13.3 |
| 2030 | 52.2 | 9.4 | 43.7 | 13.3 | 1.7 | 10.6 |
| 2031 | 54.3 | 13.0 | 51.6 | 21.1 | 2.9 | 7.9 |
| 2032 | 56.4 | 17.9 | 60.9 | 31.8 | 4.3 | 5.1 |
| 2033 | 58.7 | 24.7 | 71.8 | 46.1 | 5.3 | 3.0 |
| 2034 | 61.1 | 34.1 | 84.8 | 65.1 | 5.4 | 1.9 |
| 2035 | 63.5 | 47.1 | 100.0 | 90.0 | 5.3 | 1.2 |
| 2036 | 66.0 | 64.9 | 118.0 | 122.6 | 5.2 | 0.5 |
| 2037 | 68.7 | 89.6 | 139.3 | 165.1 | 4.8 | 0.1 |
Predictions of ten plus years are really not to be trusted. But the reduction to 10.6Twh in 2030 from 25Twh is something this government we just elected controls. We make planning and other decisions all the time that decide if we meet these trend increases in demand, solar, wind and batteries. We can decarbonise fast enough to prevent billions in fines in 2030 if we follow this path.
