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WIND GENERATION IN Ireland was the third highest on record last month, but the overall figure this year is expected to drop when compared to 2023.
Wind Energy Ireland, the representative body for the Irish wind industry, said the drop is partly due to wind energy being lost because the electricity grid isn’t strong enough to carry it.
When this happens, wind farms are instructed to reduce the amount of power they produce or shut down entirely, resulting in more fossil fuels being used instead of renewable energy.
Justin Moran, director of external affairs at Wind Energy Ireland, said Ireland is fortunate to have “natural resources like wind that can generate more affordable, clean electricity to power our local communities”.
But while Moran said wind farms performed well in October, providing 35% of Ireland’s energy, he cautioned that this year is on track to be the worst on record for the amount of wind energy wasted.
Over the first nine months of the year, 14% of wind energy production was lost because of challenges with the transmission network.
To overcome this challenge, Moran said he wants to see EirGrid “get support right across Irish society for its plans to reinforce our transmission system”.
Moran also urged public support for projects like the North-South Interconnector, which he described as “essential to a robust, modern, Irish electricity grid”.
The North-South Interconnector is an overhead line that will start in Co Tyrone and then run into Co Armagh and into counties Monaghan, Cavan and Meath, thus connecting the electricity grids in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Last month, wind energy provided 35% of Ireland’s electricity, with solar and other renewable energy sources accounting for 4%.
The remaining 61% of electricity was provided by fossil fuels.
This amounted to 1,219 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of wind energy being generated last month in Ireland, and Kerry account for 10.7% of this with 131 GWh of wind energy produced.
This was closely followed by Cork, accounting for 10.6%, or 130 GWh, of Ireland’s wind power.
A megawatt-hour is a unit of electricity, and the average Irish household uses around 4.6 megawatt-hours of electricity in a year.
Moran remarked that Irish wind farms, particularly those in Kerry, are playing an “enormous part in reducing Ireland’s carbon emissions by over 4 million tonnes a year and creating significant opportunities in job creation and funding for rural communities”.
He added: “By growing our renewable energy sector, we can build an Ireland that is energy independent, delivering warm homes, cleaner air and one that meets the needs of our growing economy.”
Meanwhile, 32% of Ireland’s energy came from wind farms in the first ten months of this year, though Wind Energy Ireland noted that 14% of wind power was lost in the first nine months of 2024 due to challenges with the transmission network.
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Imagine, if we had a network fit for purpose, 46% of our energy requirements would be met through wind energy alone. Time to improve the network.
@timothy o connor: Network isn’t much of an issue when you can’t store what is generated. Wind is pretty pathetic when it comes to efficiency sadly.
@timothy o connor: What happens in a dead calm?
@Brian Hunt: You bring in the energy from windy or sunny places on interconnectors. We do this to a limited extent at the moment, we just need to do more.
@MTM2000: or places with nuclear derived energy. Places like france, the UK. It’s not only wind and sun as I understand it.
@timothy o connor: To be correct:46% of the demand of the public electricity grid could be met – if we were living on a copper plate.
The private power prosumers do not appear in any statistics re. home made consumption. “Our” grid demand isn’t mine,I have 20 panels.
So we have the wind and the means to produce vast amounts of electricity but by self admission, the present infrastructure network can’t handle or distribute it. What person or body is responsible for no forward thinking and planning?
@Andy Preneur: Eamon Ryan
@Andy Preneur: You won’t find large investments when electricity is managed by private companies. Large investments means less money for the shareholders so it won’t happen.
@Ciaran Enright: not really, this should have been done long before his time.
@Andy Preneur: The investors.They are responsible.And they are investing.
The article is alarmist:no fuel costs,no loss.
It is the high electricity price which calls for investment.
Otherwise the RE investments would not be growing.
And they grow.
Yet..Our electricity bills are among the highest in the EU! All Politicians and Networks Should be Throughly Ashamed!!!
@Mick Hanna: 35 years paying electricity bills in this country. Despite all the windmills and now fields of solar panels I’m still waiting for any kind of decrease. We’re being had.
@Mick Hanna: Our direct subsidies to consumers are also among the highest:
@Mick Hanna: except for the politicians kept fed with brown envelopes from the fossil fuel companies – they are too bust counting their money to feel shame.
Is there any good news?
@reg morrisey: PV power costs under 8 cents/kWh
With the election campaign on the go this month wind generation will be at an all time high due to all the wind bags bellowing out their unrealistic promises around the country I say.
In the past three weeks there has hardly been any wind or solar generated. Any notion of storage over and above 12 hours or so, is off the Richter scale in cost, but main problem is all has to be backed up by gas stations or nuclear interconnectors. The two cars in the driveway sydndrome, when you only need one. Big problem is the French wont have any spare nuclear for us, because Merkel to get back into Gov. back the way, did a deal with Greens and shut down their stations. Their grids are internlinked, so all spare will be going there. Trouble ahead.! Forget the vested interests and get ordering some nuclear power plants for here, along with a good supply of adult diapers.
@Nicholas Grubb: its ok , the french national energy company, bought the wind farm of the galway coast from the developer (who went bust more than once) johnny ronan last year
@Nicholas Grubb: Gosh …
Why would Irish atom power not be bought from Brittany driving up the Irish lecky prices?!
The cables make the traders rich.Where in fact the major inflation driver on our household electricity bills.And still they are.
@Nicholas Grubb: nuclear power plants take 20 or 30 years to come on stream. No good for 2050 goals.
People who refuse to believe the experts when it’s a positive wind energy story now suddenly believe the experts when it’s a slightly negative story. Utter hypocritical BS
The Wind Energy/ Renewable sector is a scandal of our time that needs to be exposed. We were told Deregulation would lower Energy prices, which were once one of the lowest prior to Deregulation & are now the highest in Europe. Same with Renewables & Wind Energy, all on Irish soil but owned by Multinational Investments who dictate price & lap up the subsidies. Eamon Ryan even had his Advisors doctor an SEAI report on Renewables to gloss over the real facts. The CRU who trample all over ordinary Consumers & are in the pocket of big Business, are making ordinary Consumers pay for the upgrade of the Grid, while big Business gets away Scot free & subsidized. The whole sector is rotten to the core & we are not getting the truth around Data Centre usage either, reeks of corruption.
Solar + storage is already the cheapest form of grid supplied electricity:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41971-7/figures/3
referring to
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41971-7
Whilst solar plus storage needs no grid extension (the sun shines everywhere) the centralised power’s PR machinery tells tells the author we should spend more on their ‘deal’.
For their profit.
Thank you for not being critical ….
re.
” Last month, wind energy provided 35% of Ireland’s electricity, with solar and other renewable energy sources accounting for 4%.”
A data link please.
Neither ENTSOE or ESB have any data published on the PV power fed into the public grid.Despite that they should do so.ENTSOE told me that they are not getting any data from Ireland regarding PV/solar power.Nothing.
have your say