Ireland has Too Much Power

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) -- Ireland will continue to have far more power than it needs for the coming decade according to a joint report from the transmission system operators (TSOs) in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The island of Ireland will see a 'considerable electricity generation surplus' over the coming decade, according to The All-Island Generation Capacity Statement 2013-2022 report, published by EirGrid and System Operator for Northern Ireland (SONI). As a whole, the island boasts around 9,700 MW of capacity, which will fall to 9,500 MW in 2017 as older oil-fired plants close and down to 8,500 MW by 2022. As it stands, there is 2,000 MW of oversupply, a figure that will drop to approximately 700 MW by 2022.

While Ireland expects to enjoy a steady supply until 2022 though, the gap between power supply and demand in Northern Ireland will be tight in the second part of the 10-year period. The report claimed that Northern Ireland is at risk of deficits from 2016 onwards in the event of a prolonged outage of a large generation plant or of the Moyle Interconnector, which is the only major power line linking the two networks.

"The project to build a second North-South tie line is needed to ensure that both jurisdictions have a generation supply sufficient to meet demand reliably," warned Fintan Slye, chief executive of EirGrid Group.

A second line high-voltage line between Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is expected to be in place by 2017, would improve security of supply in both countries and open up export opportunities for Ireland.

The lack of a second line and a large difference between the price of power in Ireland and Northern Ireland and U.K. will continue to hamper the Irish government's hope to export any excess electricity. Earlier this week, Ireland struck a deal to supply the U.K. with up to 2,000 MW of green electricity in the coming years, which could be worth billions of euro to the ailing Irish economy. For additional information, see January 28, 2013, article - Ireland Strikes Wind Energy Deal with U.K..

Both Ireland and Northern Ireland have ambitious renewable energy goals, having separately set targets for 2020 of having 40% of their power coming from renewables, mainly wind power.

In Ireland, installed wind capacity has jumped from 145 MW in 2002 to more than 1,600 MW in 2012. The target for 2020 will sit between 3500 MW and 4000 MW. In Northern Ireland, installed capacity of wind generation has grown from 37 MW in 2002 to 469 MW (including 15 MW of small scale wind) last year. By 2020, SONU estimates that installed wind capacity will hit 1828 MW [1097 MW of large scale onshore, 131 MW of small scale onshore and 600 MW of offshore].

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