Shock as Ireland goes mainly solar

 

In the Summer of 2026 there will be shock reported when solar energy supplies the majority of the power to the grid. 

When utility-scale solar reached a record output of 719MW during the early afternoon on August 31, rooftop solar is also estimated to have reached a record high output of 399MW. 

Demand at that time was 4300MW.

This won't happen this year. but I think it will in 2026 and when it does people will 
1. Claim this is a surprise
2. Ask about what happens at night
3. Ask about what happens in winter (which is actually a reasonable question)

38% annual growth rates of solar means that it will go from 50% at noon on the sunniest day of the year to near 100% at 4pm on a good day in May in a few years.

Ireland's Electricity Simulation

What will Ireland's Electricity mix look like in 2030 assuming

1. Demand will increase by the amount Eirgrid predict
2. 2030 will be an hour by hour weather copy of 2023.*
3. We will build the wind turbines we say we will.
4. Solar and battery trends keep going as they have for over a decade
5. 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.

Ireland's Solar Electricity in 2030

 

Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland have released their National Energy Projections 2024. In this they predict Ireland will have *2.6 more solar electricity generation capacity in 2030. And their optimistic estimate is 3 times more. Ireland has promised to install nearly 4 times more.

It is these peoples jobs to make these projections. and they know far more than I do about electricity generation. But I think they are wrong because of straight line continuing reasons

Below is Ireland's increase in Solar generation since 2017, the first year I can find data for. It increases by more than the 40% annual growth Solar has had world wide for decades

But say we slowed down to this 40% increase rate where would that leave us in 2030? We would have 10 times more solar than now. Not the 3 times SEAI predicts on the optimistic path.

Lots of things could interrupt Ireland's trend but
1. there are lots of planning applications for new solar farms. ' If all were developed, it would add a further 9.5 GW in solar energy to the grid,

surpassing our 2030 target of 8 GW'

2. We have promised to install 8GW of capacity so planning hold ups seem less likely

3. Prices keep dropping, and production keeps increasing. Solar installs in general keep surpassing expectations.

I think the SEAI solar predictions are too low and we are going to have over 10GW of solar installed by 2030. Instead of 2030 to have 5.7GW I think that will be 2 years time, by the end of 2026.

Have Batteries for Ireland's excess wind energy

Ireland regularly produces more energy, from wind, than it needs at night. 95GWh is more than the increase that happens 5-7pm. This means that if we could store the wind energy at night it would significantly help during peak hours of the evening.

How much would this cost? 

"Benchmark Lithium ion Battery Cell prices have fallen to $66.5/kWh in September (Benchmark’s Global Weighted Average); falling just shy of 20% this year". So if we store €60.38 worth of kWh energy that means the battery pays for itself.

At retail prices that is 190 stores and discharges. There is a wholesale retail difference but still six months payback time is so short as to still make it really economical.

Solar already significantly add to the electricity supply which means you might be able to get two discharges on a battery a day. Once in the smaller morning peak using overnight wind power and again in the evening using the days solar.

We have excess wind energy, and next summer solar, so often that grid scale lithium batteries could pay for themselves in months.

Solar Power in Ireland Price Comparison

 There is a good article about Solar power in Ireland here

'It is expected that about 600-700 MW of new solar will come on-stream as a result of this renewable energy support scheme... In sunnier Spain, auctions for solar can get it on the grid for about €24 per megawatt-hour; the equivalent cost in Ireland is three times higher, at €73. "

All else being equal I would rather make electricity in Ireland than rely on abroad. But how much of surcharge should we be willing to pay for purely local generated power? We get coal from Colombia for our coal plants. At three times the price we might be able to mine it here but we don't.

Colombia is relatively uncorrupt place compared to Saudi or the Russian. Which we also rely on for energy. But still not great. Countries could turn off the supply or up the price no matter what a contract says. Could we trust North African countries not to turn off the power at the whim of some dictator?

Columbia is 46th in the worlds most democratic countries index. This index seems a reasonable proxy for likelihood of keeping contracts. Russia is 124th and Saudi 156th. The North African countries Tunisia 54th, Morocco 96th, Algeria 115th. These seem presently to be a bit more trustworthy, contract wise.

Solar power seems so spread out that it would be hard for a dictator to corner the marker and increase the price drastically. There is just more desert and it is easier to put solar farms on there there is locations and the skills needed to mine oil and gas. As such I don't think the argument that we should have solar farms in Ireland even if they are much less efficient because of political stability issues in other countries as that compelling. 

Solar Power in Ireland

 Is it worth installing solar power in Ireland? Or is it more efficient to build the solar power someplace with more kilowatt hours per panel per year and transport the electricity from there?

BORD GÁIS ENERGY ANNOUNCE NEW DEVELOPMENT OF 11 SOLAR FARMS

"Obton’s aim is to expand their portfolio and solar energy products here to reach a total capacity of 1 Gigawatt (GW) by 2026, their venture will see the total value of its portfolio and projects here reach an investment of €750m in the sector.

The eleven solar farms will have the capacity to generate up to 118MW of power and are a part of the Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS).

These facilities will be located in 8 counties and will include sites in Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Longford, Galway, Offaly, Meath, and Tipperary."

There are three questions here. 1. Amount of power gotten  2. Losses in transmission. 3. Cost per kwh
1. Ireland does not get much sunshine

these counties get about 2.7KWH. In Morocco this figure is double

2. Transmission losses. Ireland to Morocco is about 4000km. Losses per 1000km are about 3%. Which is small enough to make transmission feasible.

3. Cost. Median wage in Ireland is €36,095 and in Morocco is about €6000. Engineers are going to be a lot more similar than this. But much of the standard cleaning and basic maintenance of panels will be much cheaper in Morocco. Land in the Sahara is much cheaper than in Ireland so the land costs will also be less.

We might want to keep Irish money in Ireland. But if we are getting close to twice the power for less cost that gives us lots of the spare money to keep in Ireland.
Tunisia will sell solar electricity at 0.036 Euro per kwh . Irish Electricity unit price 21.24c per kWh. There is of course an issue with when the sun shines and electricity reliability. Though if we are going to have a percentage of our electricity from solar surely it should be from a much cheaper source even if that is further away?