While that may be true, it really is not attributable to renewables. Quite the opposite, in fact. A combination of fossil fuel generation and incredibly high demand due to data-centre activity is what drives our higher prices, and the sooner those who seem to consider it a virtue to moan about the Greens accept that fact, the better for all of us. It’s just cold, hard economics, science and geopolitics - renewables are cheaper, cleaner and a more secure source of energy.thats your personal circumstance, thats very different from the irish electricity market which has the most expensive electricity in Europe, thats a fact. Its not just about renewables but the fact that we have alot of small inefficient power stations , a large and weak grid for the size of population, and have installed alot of emergency expensive generators (diesel generators basically) to keep the lights on. So rather than building efficient power stations we have been putting in emergency generators. Here is an article explaining it
Ireland now has EU’s highest electricity prices – Here’s how you can save
Electricity prices for Irish households are now €500 higher than the EU average, according to new data from Eurostat.www.newstalk.com
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SquirrelChaser
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I believe that the energy security aspect of renewable energy hasn't gotten anywhere near the attention it deserves, especially when it comes to decentralised generation.
Ukraine is going into its third winter of strikes aimed at its energy infrastructure. Such strikes are only effective because of centralised power generation and power distribution networks, and it's therefore possible to cut power to large areas with relatively few strikes.
Contrast that with wind turbines for every town and village, solar on every rooftop, and batteries in every home, farm and business. It's not that strikes on power stations & substations don't matter anymore, but their impact is massively reduced. In the Irish context it'd be more about mitigating the impacts of winter storms and fluctuating fossil fuel prices, but the benefits are still there.
Yeah, for share of electricity we're not the worst, though we're the third-worst Western European nation after France and Belgium (both heavily nuclear). In any case, it's hard to look at Ireland's electricity generation mix, and claim that it renewable generation is responsible for Irish power being more expensive than elsewhere in Europe; we just don't have that much renewable generation.
That’s local energy security, but there’s also geopolitical energy security too. We saw what happened to natural gas prices (and consequentially electricity prices) when Russia invaded Ukraine. A middle-east conflict that could destabilise oil delivery is never too remote a possibility either. And then you could have a manufactured 70’s-style OPEC- or Trump-led supply-constraining crisis too, who knows!
Tbh, when you think of how we under-exploit vast tracts of land for beef-farming and associated feedstocks when it could provide better food security through crop farming or better energy security through wind/solar, it’s almost criminal how parochial we are as a nation!
You are completely underestimating what the Ukrainians are dealing with , there is no way in a million years the Irish grid would be able to cope with what ukraine is doing. For a start we have no radar and air defences ,the Russians would have knocked out the country instantly. Also ukraine had a huge nuclear power generation which is zero carbon and runs 24 hours, 7 days a week. You need a constant supply to keep the grid stable, we need conventional power stations for that but since we closed down some prematurely we now need diesel generators to fill in when the wind is not blowing. There hasn't been much wind power on the grid in last few days, yet the lights are still on. That's because of money point , gas stations and diesel generation at peak demand.
Grid architectures change very, very slowly, and particularly changing from centralised non-variable to decentralised-variable generation is a massive structural change. But for an island grid like ours with the natural advantages we have with wind in particular, it’s absolutely the right thing to do. Yes, we are adding tons of variable renewables but alongside interconnector pipelines, lithium grid-scale battery storage, flywheel inertial storage, etc.