Ireland to Replace Last Coal Plant with Huge Green Hub and Floating Wind Farm
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:
Ireland to replace last coal plant with huge green hub and floating wind farm:
The closure of the Moneypoint coal-fired power station is in line with the Ireland Government's ambition of reaching net zero emissions by 2050. It was already scheduled "no later than 2025".
The Moneypoint site in County Clare will now be transformed into a green energy hub, and work has already begun on a new 50m Sustainable System Support facility which will include the largest Synchronous Compensator in the world, which will provide a range of electrical services to the country's electricity grid which would previously have been supplied by thermal fired power stations.
The new Sustainable System Support will also enable the incorporation of higher volumes of renewable energy sources on the Irish grid.
Moving forward, ESB will also build the Moneypoint Floating offshore wind farm, a 1.4GW project to be developed off the coast of Counties Clare and Kerry in two phases in partnership with Norwegian power company Equinor.
ESB also hopes that Moneypoint will become a centre for the construction and assembly of floating wind turbines with the development of a wind turbine construction hub, using the site's existing deep-water port that could also be an ideal staging ground for other projects in the region.
[...] According to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEIA), in 2018, coal and peat accounted for 40% of the country's carbon emissions from electricity generation, but only accounted for 14% of electricity generated, with each providing similar levels of generation to the grid.
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