In answer to my question - Are we Irish complete gobshites? - Tom Raftery posted a categorical "No!" and and excellent analysis of the issues with large scale wind farm deployment in Ireland -
"The reason Eirgrid don’t want any more wind power on the grid is because it de-stabilises the network.
Consider the following scenario. It is 2am. Electricity demand across the country is at its lowest. There is a 40mph wind blowing across the country. Wind energy at this point can be supplying up to 30% of the country’s demand.
What happens now if the wind picks up to 50mph? The wind farms shut down to protect their mechanisms and suddenly Eirgrid are left scrambling trying to bring gas turbine stations online to meet the sudden fall-off of 30% of their supply. Gas turbine stations can take up to an hour to reach full generation capacity.
The more windfarms Eirgrid take onto the network, the greater a problem this becomes. Unless there was some kind of ready counter-balance to the instability of wind farms…
Well now it appears that there's hope on the horizon (excuse the pun). Via the Sustainable Energy blog I read that "Wind power, long considered to be as fickle as wind itself, can be groomed to become a steady, dependable source of electricity and delivered at a lower cost than at present, according to scientists at Stanford University." Full story on the Stanford News Service.
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