Sir, – Donagh Cagney (Letters, October 12th) is correct in the observation that the effort in research and development of wave energy in Ireland has reduced, but it has not stopped completely. For example, next week, we will attend a conference on ocean energy in Spain where we will present results of a wave-power project funded by Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), extending work done some years ago by researchers in the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine Research and Innovation in Cork.
At that event we will meet with EVE (the Basque counterpart of the SEAI) with the objective of participating in their development challenge that Donagh referred to.
I personally know of researchers in UCD, Maynooth and UCC, as well as a small number of SMEs, who still have an interest in wave power in Ireland.
Should there be the political will to seed more ambitious developments, the ground is already fertile. – Yours, etc,
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CRAIG MESKELL,
Associate Professor,
School of Engineering,
Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin 2.
Sir, – Nuclear, wave, tidal, solar, wind and biomass have been aired in your paper recently as alternatives to fossil fuel electricity generation.
Not a single sentence though has been given to an existing technology that meets all the advantages of the above and, by comparison, has few environmental downsides.
A pumped hydroelectric power station is one of the best-proven technologies available at scale that can provide the system flexibility and storage needed to help achieve our renewable targets.
Ireland’s only pumped hydroelectric storage plant at Turlough Hill in Wicklow comprises four reversible pump turbines with a combined capacity of 292 MW, with approximately 573,000 MW/h annual storage capacity.
By comparison a single, modern wind turbine generates 3 MW of electricity, when the wind is blowing.
The proposed Silvermines Hydro’s 360 MW plant will have approximately 650,000 MW/h annual storage capacity. Full planning permission for this major private project is expected to be sought in early 2023, with delivery in 2028.
In Switzerland, the huge Nant de Drance facility began commercial operations on July 1st this year and is currently one of Europe’s largest pumped-hydro storage stations, with a combined power output of 900 MW from its six turbines.
Back in 2013, a Norwegian energy giant spurned an opportunity to invest in a €1.5 billion pumped hydro-power storage scheme in the west of Ireland.
This pumped hydro-power storage scheme involved using excess or off-peak wind power, such as when the wind energy blows at night, to pump seawater into a reservoir in a flooded coastal valley that would be dammed at the end closest to the sea.
The water could then be released to flow down to the sea during peak times to turn large turbines in order to generate electricity.
The Spirit of Ireland project, as it was called, was originally conceived in the Noughties by electrical engineer Graham O’Donnell and Igor Shvets, a professor of applied physics at Trinity College.
The plan was revolutionary in that it proposed using sea water in an open-loop pumped hydro storage set-up.
If Ireland could be forward-thinking in the 1920s with the hydro-electric facility at Ardnacrusha, there should be no reason why we can’t do it with pumped hydro a century later, with the necessary political will. – Is mise,
TOM McELLIGOTT,
Tournageehy,
Listowel,
Co Kerry.
Sir, – Kerry county councillors have a fair point about the number of wind turbines in their county, at 384.
In Dublin, with the greatest population and usage of electricity in Ireland, I cannot recall seeing a single wind turbine, either on the hills above the city, nor in the shallow waters of Dublin Bay.
Not even onshore in Dublin Port, unlike many other ports around the world. Ringaskiddy Port in Cork has several large wind turbines close by.
Even my own small town has a wind turbine within a mile of the town centre.
Having large arrays of wind turbines close to the largest concentrated user of electricity, Dublin, also makes sense from a materials and environmental point of view.
Instead of having hundreds of kilometres of pylons and wire consuming large amounts of copper and steel, strung at great cost over the whole country to serve Dublin, surely the wind turbines should be located right close to it, to further reduce the environmental impact by shortening those runs of pylons, wire and associated infrastructure saving on material costs, as part of the “reduce, reuse, recycle” mantra, and reducing objections from rural populations.
Before Kerry gets more turbines than its current 384, and councillors there haven’t ruled out the possibility of more in their county, surely Dublin should get at least one?
Howth Head and Killiney Hill seem like two prime locations to me, with both height and being close to the sea resulting in lack of obstruction of windflow being in their favour.
They could even become the new icons of Dublin, replacing the Poolbeg chimneys.
I won’t hold my breath, as it could be a long wait, and blue does not show me to my best advantage.
Seriously, though, why are there no wind turbines in and around Dublin? – Yours, etc,
DAVID DORAN,
Bagenalstown,
Co Carlow.