'Perfect storm' straining country's power grid system
EirGrid said this week's system alerts were due to low wind, limited electricity imports, and forced outages at a number of generators causing 'tight margins'.
Ireland has had 13 system alerts on the power grid in the past two years, the same number as the entire decade previously — as a "perfect storm" is straining the system.
The State's power grid operator EirGrid has insisted there was no threat of blackouts as two system alerts — previously called amber alerts — were issued in the past two days, bringing the total to four in the past month alone.
There has now been seven alerts this year, with EirGrid saying this week's events were due to low wind, limited electricity imports, and forced outages at a number of generators causing "tight margins".
By way of comparison, there were 13 amber alerts in Ireland between 2010 and 2019, but during the previous decade, from 2000 to 2009, there were in excess of 500.
"The alert means that the buffer between the demand for electricity and the available supply is currently smaller than optimum. It does not indicate a loss of electricity supply to customers," an EirGrid spokesperson said.
University College Cork professor of energy engineering Brian Ó Gallachóir said the system encountered the "perfect storm".
"The threat is greater this year compared to last year because of the Russian invasion into Ukraine and the prospect of a disruption in gas supply. Last year, we saw gas prices rises as supply was constrained, causing price rises, but nothing like what we may see this winter. We saw electricity supply at risk last winter but not gas supply.
"We can anticipate increased gas and electricity prices this winter. When we add the risk of disruption in gas supplies, this creates more challenges for us," he said.
Ireland needs to take energy demand reduction seriously with a focus on persuading everyone — not just households but business, including data centres, he added.
He said the country needed to accelerate retrofitting as well as wind and solar energy, while there is also a need to have sufficient fossil-fired electricity supply for periods when the wind is low.
"We need to build more gas-fired electricity generation but to use it less — this will need to be funded as an energy security measure, the market tried and failed to deliver on this last year.
"We need to explore options for diversified gas supply including gas storage, LNG supply and indigenous gas supply — but only if, and this is a big if, it can be brought on quickly — ideally within the next 24 months and can be decommissioned in sufficient time so we don’t have fossil fuel lock-in."
The Department of Environment said Ireland’s gas-fired power plants are capable of running for a period of time on oil in the event of a gas supply disruption, and there is a storage of secondary fuels available.
"Regularly-tested emergency plans are in place which could be activated, if necessary, by Gas Networks Ireland," a spokesperson said.
