MAREX 2016 - Organic Power

What is the initiative?
CLEAN ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE
The initiative is proposed by Organic Power to provide infrastructure to export large volumes of intelligent clean energy
from Mayo to both the Greater Dublin Area and the UK by 2016. We believe if all stakeholders engage with the initiative,
there are no technical or environmental barriers to its completion in a short timeframe. It is composed of 3 elements:
A large scale large turbine wind farm
Wind in North Mayo
The Mayo County Council Renewable
Energy Strategy adopted in
2011 has zoned an enormous area
of land as suitable for wind development
and a further area open to
consideration, which is sufficient
to accomodate many thousands of
Megawatts (MW) of Windpower capacity,
in large windfarms, in a part of
the country where large size windmill
efficiency will exceed 50% due the
high energy wind resource available.
This compares very favourably with
the other large zoned areas in midland
counties where efficiency will
be 40% or less. Therefore investing
in wind turbines in North Mayo will
generate a superior return on investment
than in the midlands. There is
zoned potential for 129MW of wind
within 5km of Glinsk, 207MW between
5 and 10km, 387MW between
10 and 15km, 909MW between 15
and 20km, 1464MW between 20
and 25km of the Energy Storage
Hub. This is on the basis of 3MW
machines spaced 500m apart. It is
probable that 6MW offshore type turbines
may be suitable for this area,
increasing the potential wind capacity
considerably. Wind farms would
be connected using underground AC
cables to an AC/DC node adjacent
to the Energy Storage Hub. When
wind generation is above 50% capacity
(1000MW) the excess will be
diverted into the energy storage at
Glinsk for delivery when the wind
drops wind farm output below 50%.
Proposed Seawater PHES at Glinsk
Energy Storage
The Glinsk Energy Storage Hub will
accept up to 960MW of power from
the windfarms for storage. This
power will be held in storage until
peak demand periods occur during
any given day and then exported
to coincide with demand. It will add
value to the variable electricity produced
by the wind generators, and
provide a large scale intelligent energy
source.
It will be ready to also accept wave
energy at large scale when this
technology comes of age.
It will link the best wind resource in
Europe to the UK market, delivering
power intelligently when needed.
The PHES will be at least 78% efficient
overall.
The PHES scheme can deliver intelligent
power at maximum output
for 6 hours per day (or much longer
at reduced output), corresponding
to peak demand on the day in the
UK and Ireland. The scheme will
accept energy off peak for 4 up to
20 hours per day depending on the
available wind energy.
The diversion of windpower above
1000MW output into storage ensures
maximum utility for the wind
farms and permits 2000MW of wind
to be connected to market using
1000MW of transmission cable.
Example Bipole HVDC cable
HVDC transmission
The main obstacle to developing
this clean intelligent energy resource
is the lack of transmission
infrastructure to export the power
from Mayo to market. EIRGRID
has plans to build a single 400kV
line to the area by 2019, which
will at very best, only accomodate
1500MW of wind power.
The proposal to link intelligent
energy to the market therefore includes
a dedicated transmission
system to deliver power to suitable
markets, in Dublin and the UK.
This transmission system will be
composed of 2 part -undersea and
part-underground cables each capable
of transmitting 500MW as a
minimum. One cable will deliver
power for distribution in the Dublin
Area, and the other will be linked
to the UK interconnector to export
500MW of power to the UK, or intelligently
import nuclear power for
storage for storage in times of long
calm weather periods.
HVDC is appropriate technology
for this application because it is
suitable for undersea and underground,
avoiding the public conflicts
generated by overhead lines.
It will also allow the efficient transmission
power at low levels of
losses accross the country.
Organic Power Ltd