N Ireland Close To Blackouts As Wind Fails
By Paul Homewood
An emergency alert has been triggered on Northern Ireland’s electricity grid, sending it into an amber warning at teatime today.
The warning – which did not mean that blackouts were imminent – was in place from 5pm to 6.30pm.
It comes during the first serious cold spell since the closure of Kilroot Power Station’s coal-fired units and the bungled delay in replacing them, something which drastically reduced margins in the electricity system.
In a message to the island-wide Integrated Single Electricity Market (I-SEM), the market operator told market participants this afternoon: “Due to tight generation capacity margins in the SEM, a System Alert (amber) will be issued effective from 17:00 to 18:30 on 15/01/2024 in Northern Ireland.
“A further communication will be issued when the System Alert has been lifted.”
The System Operator for Northern Ireland (SONI) said the alert was caused by increased demand and very little wind production. It said there was no need for consumers to take any action, and pointed to its winter outlook which had predicted that such alerts will become more common.
There is no immediate risk of blackouts. The electricity grid’s lowest level of alert is amber, followed by a red emergency alert — and blackout after that.
Today’s conditions represent the most challenging for the grid operator, combining little wind with cold weather.
About 43MW of wind power was being generated this afternoon — a fraction of the 1,060MW peak wind generation. Most of the rest of the electricity in the system is coming from gas, with the remainder being imported from Scotland via the Moyle Interconnector.
And what will Ireland do when all of those gas plants are shut down?
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
What is the purpose of the system alert?
“And what will Ireland do when all of those gas plants are shut down?”
Feel virtuous (for saving the planet) & bloody cold !!
Incompetence everywhere. Isn’t it obvious you don’t close down existing energy capacity before replacement power is operational? It really isn’t hard.
Yes, they should have built all the windmills first to solve the problem of lack of energy when the wind is low…..er…..
It’s obvious to us ordinary mortals but apparently not to our idiotic politicians. In Britain, our last remaining coal power station, Ratcliffe on Soar, is currently running flat out, but our genius politicians plan to close it permanently this coming September.
They presumably are working on the assumption that “something will come up” before next Winter’s cold and calm spell arrives.
What a way to run a country!
Sadly, what will come up is an election, resulting in this lot of incompetents being booted out and a new lot (even more scientifically/logistically illiterate) gaining ‘Green’ power. That’ll work out well, then….
I have to say once again that I do not believe for a minute that it is incompetence.
What’s happened to our Nucs? 14% down to 6%. Are some being serviced?
Steam valve failure in one reactor. Three other reactors shut down to check their steam valves as a precaution. Down 4 reactors, so a round 2 Gigawatts of supply gone awol.
Actually down 6 today as one at Torness is having a statutory outage ( I think, it says it’s planned but is due a statutory outage in April apparently, so maybe it’s steam valve related too) and one at Heysham 2 for refuelling.
Now you might think that someone would look at the weather forecast and conclude that holding off refuelling for a week or two ’til it gets warmer would be good, especially given all the others that are offline, but I’m probably being naive. They do frequently run at slightly reduced power to conserve fuel until a date if needed.
So we have just 3 reactors running for a total of about 2.4MW. (Sizewell is one reactor, two turbines):
https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/power-station/daily-statuses
Grid is currently and was yesterday, using coal at 4%.
That’s pretty much flat out – only one coal station left…
Check your standby generators ahead of this evening peak..
Factoid of the Day:
Northern Ireland is part of EirGrid, rather than Britain’s National Grid
https://x.com/IntermittentNRG/status/1707674035327213856?s=20
Who can doubt that both Varadkar and Sinn Fein has the interests of Ulster citizens close to their little hearts?
Varadkar is a Davos Fascist so most certainly does nothing to benefit the people of N Ireland or Ireland.
Gosh!
Who knew?
Look up “sarcasm” in dictionary.
There are two 500MW bidirectional connectors to Ireland. Wales to Eire and Scotland to Ulster
‘It comes during the first serious cold spell since the closure of Kilroot Power Station’s coal-fired units and the bungled delay in replacing them’
Replacing them with what? Wind?
‘Today’s conditions represent the most challenging for the grid operator, combining little wind with cold weather.’
Challenging? They gather electricity from sources and distribute it. Surely, they are well organized and know what they are doing. They go down through their list of sources. It will be challenging when there are none left.
‘An emergency alert has been triggered on Northern Ireland’s electricity grid, sending it into an amber warning at teatime today.’
It’s NOT an ’emergency.’
‘The warning – which did not mean that blackouts were imminent – was in place from 5pm to 6.30pm.’
Mr Professional Writer, can you call it an alert? It’s not a ‘warning.’
The writer’s ignorance pours through, resulting in the article being his projections, not reality.
At one stage there was a plan to build 400MW of CCGT in Belfast Harbour on part of the old BP refinery site next to George Best Airport (formerly Shorts Aerodrome). The NI politicians have been very obtuse about ensuring their own security of supply, and the South has been quite keen to make the North dependent on the new North-South interconnector when the wind doesn’t blow. However, supplies in the South are really not all that secure: their own gas production is running down, so they depend on imports that come via Scotland and the Isle of Man, and their plans to close coal and peat power leave them horribly exposed. They have at times banned exports on the East-West interconnector to Wales, fearing that the UK would outbid them and leave them with shortages and blackouts.
They are starting to build a new interconnector to France, but it will be costly and doesn’t really solve their longer term problems that arise from trying to rely too heavily on wind in the future. EirGrid have warned the politicians that there are questions about the feasibility of their plans, but the politicians plough on regardless.
Ireland? Huh, got to thinking about this sort of thing after watching https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/zdfinfo-doku/ancient-apocalypse-pyramiden-am-pazifik-100.html this morning after feeding the Livestock ( unlike as in Dundee, we DO talk to the animals and the tractors) – helps in getting started on a cold frosty morning or soft ground ( Years since we had snowdrifts )
Well as per the Docu and later again with the Khmer civilisation
https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/zdfinfo-doku/ancient-apocalypse-angkor-wat-100.html The Rich and controlling fled in the wake of changing climate and other forces …. SO! in our TIME, we have experimented with wind tech ON LAND for convenience and then destroy our power stations to erect Off-shore wind ONLY, in the future ( forget PV for night time use, ) and all ICE removed. What’s left? Blown Fat batteries waiting for the off-shore wind to provide, but it never will – when the Mills have been destroyed through wind n waves and our “Leaders” – Haha, have fled to the Carib. retreats to clap hands for Fishfood n Coconuts. The masses cannot even now get out then to repair any windmill and have nothing to “Motivate” them to continue. Back to the Dark Ages Collapse … .Anyone getting the message? and Donald cannot live for ever: lets hope he will survive long enough to drain the sump before the pumps and excavator fail.
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/atkins-report-shows-uk-slipping-on-energy-targets Awww what a shame! Replying on that website is a waste of time IMO
What about all the empty sheds with open doors and windows and wood burning stoves that wet built for R H I scamming that brought fow stormont
Thanks for the link – being bored I downloaded it. Did you read the report, old soldier? It’s only 7 pages including some pretty pictures of your herons, but there’s a great graph in there that just proves the government’s plans for 2035 are plain impossible. The rest of the report tries hard to avoid that obvious conclusion!
Thnx for the prod. browsed it but really getting bored with the nonsense and having to “re-learn” old tat or rubbish. ‘I told you so’ springs to mind. ( NOTE: I do NOT like having to learn Rubbish from these younger wotsits. AS I’ve said before, all this nonsense is a GENERATIONAL thing … like now: Forecast Coldest in 10 yrs ( or wassit since 2010?) AND temps are 5C(Assumed Celsius) BELOW what is EXPECTED for this time of year )
” … during the first serious cold spell ”
Seriously? I don’t think they know what C O L D means.
Current wind speed should be enough to turn blades,
but not much electricity will be produced.
All part of the great Reset plan , alongside Climate change hysteria, Covid paranoia, Nut Zero, unrestrained immigration.
Read Alex Jones latest book “ The great Awakening “ it’s all in there , chapter and verse on how we are all being duped by the Elites aided and abetted by the WEF.
‘Wind Fails’
Wind is variable. It goes up and it goes down. When it goes down, it isn’t ‘failing.’ ‘Wind Fails’ sounds like anthropomorphism.
People who entrust wind to create their electricity fail when the wind goes down. It’s not like they didn’t know it was going to happen. It’s not the wind’s fault, it’s theirs.
I also understand a huge section of England almost lost its power around 23rd Dec 2023, when an IC1F inter connector trip, coupled with high wind input almost started a rolling outage