Looking forward to it!

Nice! Just out of curiosity: is there currently anyway to prove the use of renewable electricity to the public without revealing sensitive personal data?

I see from this paper that compared with Way et al. (2022), they introduced “learning in operational costs, rather than only in CAPEX”, which benefits solar and offshore wind, also “solar power and wind energy see a higher learning rate than previous model versions”. So very surprised wind not gaining more.

It is difficult to compare the results of Way et al. (2022) and this paper directly since in the former final and usable energy were reported and here it is electricity that is reported in the text, although from their relative share (both across time and wind vs solar at a given time), the conditions for solar is probably more favorable and wind growth is more constrained in this paper.

(Note: if I recalled correctly, Way et al. were the first to develop this system dynamics model that made learning rates endogenous feedback processes.)

I mean I understand this is modeling a pathway with no further climate policy, but still wind being second cheapest option should gain more share.

Seems too conservative projection for wind energy, but yeah most experts agree solar will be dominant.

Algae are also the preferable bioenergy source compared with using trees.

Inflexibility of conventional power plants is one issue, but for Ireland things have developed to a point I suspect it is no longer the main operational constraint on the grid.

Ireland is an island grid and needs to keep system inertia on its own (HVDC connection with neighbors cannot synchronize Ireland’s grid with UK’s, let alone continental Europe). This service is traditionally provided by conventional power plants in GW scale grids, but soon when synchronous condenser and inverter-based solutions become norm, there is no reason why 100% instantaneous wind + solar is not possible as shown already in various microgrids.

Similar develop can be observed in other islanded or nearly islanded GW scale grids such as South Australia.