Ireland’s energy transition is at a critical juncture. A newly published report, entitled A Colossal Missed Opportunity, from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and the Climate Change Advisory Council has laid bare the financial risks facing the country if we fail to meet our climate commitments. Among the stark warnings, one message is clear: our […]
Invest in our grid today, to save billions tomorrow Read More »
Tuesday, 4th June, was a very windy day. Average wind speed across the country was estimated to be 34 km/h, making it the windiest 4th June of the last six years, so it should have been a big day for Donegal wind farms. Justin Moran explains why it wasn’t. Donegal has the third most installed
What Donegal’s Wind Power Shortfall Teaches Us About Grid Limitations Read More »
Wind Energy Ireland has worked with MullanGrid to track annual constraint levels in Ireland since 2016. See a summary of those maps above. Since 2016 constraint levels in the north-west, for example, have risen from 2.3 per cent to 11.4 per cent. In the west, it has risen from 0.3 per cent to 8.8 per
A reinforced grid = more available clean electricity Read More »
Introduction Our electricity grid was designed to accommodate a small number of fossil-fuel generators around the country. In the 1920s when it was built, this design was sufficient. But now, with hundreds of wind and solar farms generating power, more than a million more people living in the state, and a society that is highly
Do constraints affect new wind farms? Read More »
We are in a race to get more renewable power into our homes so that we can end our dependency on expensive imported fossil fuels. But we are not making the most of the renewable energy we have already built. More and more Irish wind farms are frequently forced to turn off because the country’s
Constraints On The Grid Read More »
What is Dispatch Down? Put simply, ‘Dispatch Down’ occurs when EirGrid, as the transmission system operator, instructs a renewable electricity generator to produce less electricity than it can or even to shut down entirely. If a wind farm receives this instruction even though everything might be working fine and the wind is blowing exactly how
Why is that wind turbine not moving? Read More »
For anyone working in the Irish wind energy industry the recent political furore over floating wind farms off the coasts of Mayo and Galway has seemed a bit detached from the real world writes Justin Moran. Floating wind energy is a fantastic technology and I believe Ireland can – and should – be a leader
