More and more, Irish wind farms are being forced to turn off because the country’s electricity grid is increasingly constrained.
Ireland’s electricity grid is under pressure, a lot of it. It was built for a twentieth century system using a handful of fossil fuel generators. Now, thanks to wind and solar energy, we have hundreds of clean sources of electricity feeding onto the grid. On a windy day, there might be no problem producing lots of electricity, there’s just no way to transport it to where it can be used. Without a reliable way to transport that electricity, some of it – an increasingly large amount of it – will be wasted.
These bottlenecks are particularly severe in areas with high renewable energy production, such as the west, south-west and north-west of the country. As our result, we are losing energy, producing higher than necessary carbon emissions and importing more and more gas to replace the lost renewable energy.
We believe there are several hundred MW of onshore wind energy with full planning permission which are simply financially unviable when local constraint levels are so high.
Wind Energy Ireland has worked with MullanGrid to track annual constraint levels in Ireland since 2016 and we found that constraint levels in the north-west, for example, have risen from 2.3 per cent in 2016 to 11.4 per cent in 2023. In the west, it has risen from 0.3 per cent to 8.8 per cent while in the North we are seeing the highest levels of constraints going from 2.3 per cent to 14.6 per cent.
On the other hand, the south-west of Ireland is seeing a success story. The region, which generates some of the highest wind power in the country, faced significant constraints, peaking at 7.3% in 2020. However, after reinforcing the electricity grid, the constraints have fallen to 2.3%. Through the variety of efforts to upgrade and construct the power grid, the south-west now has one of the strongest electricity grids in Ireland.
Similar upgrades are urgently needed across the country, particularly in counties such as Mayo and Donegal. Key projects such as the proposed North Connacht 110 kV cable and the North-South Interconnector are essential to strengthen Ireland’s grid.
Strengthening the grid is crucial, and we must do everything we can to see it happen.
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