Wind is no panacea for our energy needs

WIND energy is a good thing, and its advantages have been receiving much media attention.

However, the obvious disadvantages (noise, visual intrusion and interference with broadcast media) have led to increasing concern in line with the growing number of wind farms. Yet too many commentators seem still to regard wind as a panacea for our energy problems.

There is a public misconception that most of our electricity needs can be met from wind. Not so. By far the biggest limitation with wind energy is its intermittence. Experience has shown that at times of greatest electricity demand, the output of the wind farms can be negligible. The only ways to deal with this are to maintain conventional power stations on standby (expensive, polluting and inefficient) or to import supplies via interconnectors from the UK. This is also very expensive but it would facilitate the wind power industry by allowing surplus power to be exported.

In the ideal case, if we were to depend almost entirely on wind energy, at least 10 interconnectors of 500MW capacity would be required to compensate for times when wind power is unavailable.

A wind energy industry with a combined capacity of more than 10,000MW might be supported. That would involve more than 4,000 wind turbines of the largest type (some of which would be set out at sea). Then on the rare occasions when both power output and domestic demand would peak together, half of the output would be used domestically and half would be exported. That is the best-case scenario, based on generous assumptions and ignoring several drawbacks.

In practice, however, the turbines would operate on average at about 25% of their maximum capacity. Theoretically, therefore, around half of the state’s electricity would come from wind.

As for the expensive interconnectors, the level of utilisation would be much less than 100%.

Perhaps most notably, a large proportion of the electricity to be imported would be nuclear.

Three questions must be asked.

Where might the other half of our electricity supply come from?

What is the point of decrying nuclear power in Ireland if we are to depend on Britain to provide same? Some of the British nuclear plants are closer to Dublin than Carnsore ever will be.

Why should Ireland be less capable of taking responsibility for nuclear power than any of the dozens of countries currently enjoying the benefits?

John Stafford

136 Dargle Wood

Knocklyon

Dublin 16.