Power generated from wind farms met 32% of the country’s electricity demand over the first 11 months of 2024, new figures from Wind Energy Ireland shows.
Wind Energy Ireland’s latest monthly wind energy report shows that despite a drop in wind power generation compared to previous Novembers, strong winds during the second half of last month resulted in wind farms providing 29% of the country’s clean electricity.
Solar power and other renewables accounted for an additional 3% of the country’s power last month.
Kerry wind farms continued to produce more wind energy than any other county (127 GWh), followed by Cork wind farms with 123 GWh, and Mayo with (69 GWh).
For the second time since Wind Energy Ireland began publishing county generation data, in collaboration with Green Collective, Galway and Tipperary tied for fourth place at 64 GWh each.
Today’s reports shows that the average wholesale price of electricity in Ireland per megawatt-hour during November was €146.14 – the highest level in the last 12 months.
Prices on days with the most wind power saw the average cost of a megawatt-hour of electricity fall by 26% to €108.84 per megawatt-hour and rise to €196.81 on days when the country relied almost entirely on fossil fuels.
Wind Energy Ireland today highlighted the continuing high volumes of wasted energy with record levels of constraints on the electricity grid limiting the amount of power Irish wind farms are allowed to provide.
Over the first ten months of the year, it said that 14% of wind energy production was lost because of challenges with the transmission network.
This is partly due to wind energy being lost because the electricity grid is not strong enough to carry it.
When this happens wind farms are instructed to reduce the amount of power they produce or shut down completely, resulting in the use of more expensive fossil fuels instead of cheaper clean energy, Wind Energy Ireland explains.
“When our wind and solar farms are generating electricity, we need a strong grid to ensure we can use it and we need long-duration energy storage so we can save the excess renewable energy for when we need it,” Noel Cunniffe, CEO of Wind Energy Ireland, said.
“Over the first ten months of the year, 14% of wind energy production was lost because of challenges with the transmission network. That is why we are calling for cross-party political support for the reinforcement of our electricity grid, as set out in EirGrid and ESB Networks’ national plans, to be among top the priorities for political parties entering into negotiations to form our next Government,” he said.
“Investing in our electricity grid is a vital investment in our future,” he added.
Article Source – Wind farms generated 32% of electricity so far in 2024 – RTE