Enough wind and solar generation has been curtailed on the island of Ireland to meet all domestic electricity consumption in County Dublin

by cavedave

7 comments

  1. Does that include the new proposed Data centres?

  3. Curtailment in this scenario means that wind and solar generation was available but the capacity of the grid to take it and remain stable was not present and/or load was not present at the time the energy was available.

    The way to solve this is with increased interconnection, dispatchable demand, storage, and condensers.

  4. Note that a lot of this is in [Northern Ireland](https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/03/17/northern-irelands-solar-dispatch-down-rates-more-than-doubled-in-2024-eirgrid/), where they had 16.9% solar curtailment in 2024 compared to [Southern] Ireland’s 5.3%.

    There’s a single grid operating on the island of Ireland, but the actual grid *investment* in Northern Ireland is decided by the government in London, and they refuse to put any significant money into it. They have the same problem in Scotland : loads of power, but not enough grid investment to get it moved south to where it’s needed.

  5. Have they found a way to recycle the wind turbine blades yet or are they still just burying them after their 20 year lifecycle??

  6. We still have to pay for curtailed energy, which is wonderful.
    The producers are not forced to build batteries or storage to maintain a steady supply, and we pay them no matter what at the cost of the highest producer who can supply a consistent supply.

    The money they get paid for curtailed energy should be put towards storage rather than just encouraging them to produce more and more without storage.

  7. Once we show we can pay, it ceases to be a choice and juts becomes an expectation.

    Even a breakthrough like unlimited free energy wouldn’t alter those underlying dynamics.

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