Reliability Issues Caused By The Retirement Of Large Thermal Generation Facilities: An Irish Case Study

Like all developed countries Ireland faces increasing pressure to reduce their carbon footprint. Part of the governments plans include the scaling back of fossil fuel generation facilities and increasing renewable resources. Moneypoint is Irelands only coal fired generation station. In 2025 Moneypoint is due to reach the end of its life cycle. At this point the Irish government will have to make a decission on the future of the generation facility. Currently Moneypoint is responsible for the generation of approximately 10 % of Irelands energy needs. In this paper, the removal of Moneypoint from the Irish generation portfolio will be investigated. A series of simulations have been completed using historic demand and generation data. An initial assessment of the system was completed to verify the assessment technique. All three Moneypoint generation units were then removed and the relibaility of the system dropped dramatically. From this point assessments were completed to determine the quantity of wind generation that would be needed to bring the system back to a stable level. The assessments completed indicate that in 2025 an additional 3000 MW of wind generation will be needed if Moneypoint is removed from the generation portfolio of the country.