As Electricity Blackouts Threaten, The Folly Of Ireland Relying On Private Energy Is Exposed…Again
Ireland’s electricity supply was recently subject to three separate ‘amber alerts’ in just one week. Such alerts are issued by the all-Ireland Single Electricity Market Operator when demand for electricity is predicted to come close to outstripping supply. In other words, the alerts are designed to give the country advance notice of potential electricity blackouts.
Two of the alerts, on Monday, September 6th and Thursday, September 9th, were specific to the Twenty-Six Counties. The third, on Sunday, September 12th, was specific to the Six Counties only.
The issuing of amber alerts used to be rare event, with roughly one being issued per year in the decade up to 2020. But now they are being issued with an increased and worrying frequency, as the three alerts in just one recent week illustrate.
Energy experts are publicly warning that there is now a very real prospect of electricity blackouts occurring in the near future, most probably during a prolonged period of very cold weather.
A prolonged cold snap in the coming winter could push demand for electricity beyond supply, leading to power blackouts across Ireland
Blind Ideological Belief
So what’s driving this new threat to Ireland’s electricity supply? Why is a wealthy, developed country facing the very real prospects of electricity blackouts in 2021?
In short, the crisis in electricity generation is being driven by the political establishment’s blind ideological belief in private companies and market forces - the same blind ideological belief that is driving multiple parallel crises in housing, healthcare, childcare, education and so many other areas of public life.
And like those other crises, the ideological seeds of the electricity generation crisis we face today were planted many years ago - seeds that led to the creation of the all-Ireland Single Electricity Market in 2007.
The establishment of the SEM mandated that all electricity generated in Ireland must be fed into a new ‘market place’ and that all electricity consumed in Ireland must similarly be bought from this market place. The SEM also covers all electricity imported into or exported from Ireland.
As part of the creation of the SEM it was also mandated that publicly-owned companies that generate electricity, such as the ESB or Bord na Mona, were to be treated as just another player in the private market. The European-wide I-SEM, that superseded the Ireland-wide SEM in 2018, operates on these same private market principles as the SEM.
During his term of Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern oversaw the privatisation of the electricity market
Public Infrastructure - Private Profit
In 2006, a year prior to the creation of the SEM, the Dublin government established Eirgrid to oversee the new electricity market place and the high voltage transmission networks. In 2009 Eirgrid completed the purchase of its Six County equivalent, known as System Operator for Northern Ireland.
Thus a public company controlled by the Dublin government is left with responsibility for the high-voltage power lines and other physical transmission infrastructure that private energy companies need to bring electricity from their private power stations to their private customers.
This lopsided public-private arrangement, the market fanatics told us, was necessary to attract private energy companies into Ireland - the same private energy companies that they also told us would deliver secure, low cost electricity for home and business alike.
Yet here we are, a decade after the full deregulation and privatisaion of the electricity market, with three amber alerts in just one week and the looming threat of possible power blackouts in the coming months.
A closer look at factors that led to the issuing of those three amber alerts exposes why Ireland must end its reliance on private energy companies.
The necessary move to renewable sources of energy is creating challenges that the private sector cannot and will not overcome
Private Companies Fail To Deliver Power
In 2020, 36.3% of all electricity consumed in the Twenty-Six Counties was generated from wind turbines. In the Six Counties, the figure was even higher at 37.3%. While Ireland’s move to onshore wind-generated electricity is world leading, necessary and welcome, it does the leave the country vulnerable to electricity shortages during periods of low wind.
And that’s what happened last week - a period of low wind when Eirgrid should have been able to fill the temporary gap in supply with electricity coming from privately-owned natural gas-fueled power stations.
But the private sector couldn’t deliver the necessary power because two major power plants in Dublin and Cork were offline for maintenance.
When operational the Energia-owned plant in Huntstown and the Centrica-owned plant in Whitegate can produce enough electricity to power more than 1.5 million homes. Last week, however, they weren’t powering anything and they haven’t done so for months.
Eirgrid hopes that one or both plants will soon be back online, before a major spike in demand or a dip in supply, or a combination of both, brings the country to the point of power blackouts. At this point in time there is no guarantee that either of these private power stations will be operational before winter hits.
The giant Huntstown power station in Dublin has been offline for months.
Multi-Layered Challenge
In the absence of power flowing from Huntstown or Whitegate, Eirgrid has little choice but to instruct the ESB to fire up the furnaces of the giant Moneypoint power station in Co Clare. Burning up to 2,000,000 tonnes of coal per year, Moneypoint is both the largest power station and the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the state. And this brings us to the heart of the matter.
Ireland, like almost every other country on the planet, is racing to create a low-carbon economy - a goal that can only be achieved through a society-wide shift to electricity for transport, heating, cooking, lighting and virtually every other energy-consuming activity.
This energy revolution is as much about energy generation as energy consumption. There is little point in shifting to electric cars, for example, if the electricity that charges those cars comes from a coal-burning power plant.
The challenge facing Ireland is, therefore, multi-layered. Within a relatively short period of time the country needs to not only dramatically increase the amount of energy it can produce from wind, solar, hydro and other renewable, non-fossil fuel based sources.
It must also invest in large scale batteries, elevated reservoirs for hydro generation, hydrogen production and/or other means of storing renewably generated electricity for use during periods of low wind, darkness and other low supply.
And finally the country needs access to a cohort of modern, efficient natural gas burning power stations that can be rapidly brought online when all renewable energy and storage options have been exhausted.
All of this can be done in the within a decade using current technology. In the longer term new technologies, including the possible use of nuclear power, will further guarantee Ireland’s supply of non-fossil fuel based energy.
Shell operated Corrib Gas drilling platform
A New Approach Is Needed
The current market-led approach has been disastrous for the Irish people. Initially it involved handing the country’s fossil fuel reserves, including the Corrib Gas Field, to the private sector. And now Ireland’s vast renewable energy potential is headed in the same direction.
In return the private sector has demonstrably failed to deliver a secure supply of energy or low-cost energy. Instead the Irish people are paying the same price for natural gas from Corrib as they do for natural gas from Russia. And the price of electricity, much of which now comes from Irish wind turbines, remains among the highest in Europe.
Éirígí has previously highlighted the abject failure of the private sector to deliver on Ireland’s massive offshore wind potential. And it’s same story with solar energy.
The need to move away from fossil fuels is absolute and non-negotiable. So too is the requirement for energy security and energy justice as we move into the age of renewable energy. The private sector is inherently incapable of delivering on these competing needs.
The scale, complexity and urgency of the energy challenge facing Ireland cannot be left in the hands of private companies and subject to the whims of the international energy markets. Instead a new approach is needed.
A new approach that will see Ireland’s natural resources - fossil fuel and renewable - held in permanent public ownership and used in an environmentally sustainable manner for the public good.
Through our Power To The People campaign Éirígí is building awareness of the giveaway of Ireland’s vast renewable resources and building support for a publicly-led alternative. If you’re ready to join the fight for energy justice and a New Republic, please get in touch today.