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Electricity Blowing in the Wind

David Storey meets a man who has found a way to dramatically reduce his ESB bill.

Jimmy Kelly is thinking of building a swimming pool. What would be unusual about this heated pool is that it would be mainly for use in January. That's when the two turbines at the back of his house provide more electricity than he can use. January is the windiest month in Mayo and Jimmy hates to waste any of the free electricity that comes from the howling winds and gales that are a regular occurrence during that month.

As an electrical contractor who specialises in wind power, it's not surprising that Jimmy has two windmills for his own use. They are not as productive during the summer months. Then Jimmy has to resort to the normal ESB supply. But overall they supply about 60% of his electricity throughout the year. That's a significant percentage of his supply as Jimmy says he is a very high user of electricity. Apart from his normal domestic needs Jimmy uses the power from his turbines to keep his freezers and chill room going as well as to power the water sprinkler in his polytunnel.

Stored power

'What I have is two small two point five kilowatt turbines' says Jimmy.' One is up on a tower twenty metres high and the other is on a tower of six metres. The electricity from those is stored in a battery bank for days when you have no wind. When the batteries are fully charged I would have enough power for three or four days. And my wife Anne uses her dishwasher, tumble drier and all her domestic appliances and we also have power for our lights and television.'

Summer is the time when the wind is at its lowest and the turbines produce the least amount of electricity. This summer was particularly difficult as there was over a week when Jimmy had no wind power at all. 'It was very unusual to have such a long time without wind' says Jimmy. 'But it shows that you really need the back up from the ESB. In an island situation you'd need to have a portable generator.'

The turbines don't supply all their needs. At night the system switches over automatically to the ESB because that's when the electricity is cheapest. This means they are using the wind by day and the ESB at night. Jimmy reckons that every year he gets between twelve and fourteen hundred Euro worth of electricity from his turbines.

High expense

Jimmy isn't planning to have any more turbines as they are very expensive. Even though Jimmy did all the work himself setting up the turbines, they still cost over ten thousand euro each. 'The payback time is too long' says Jimmy. 'It takes as long as ten years before they pay for themselves. It might work in a group scheme where the larger turbines are used. With the larger windmills your costs go down.'

One use of his bountiful supply of power is to pump water into his tunnel. The water is pumped up from his own well into a tank which is used to water the variety of crops that he grows in his tunnel. The system is timed to come on automatically at four or five in the morning as Jimmy reckons that's the best time to water his crops. He has found that watering in the evening often produces mildew on the crops.

Commercial wind farms

Jimmy has worked on large wind farms including one at Ballaghadereen near his home. Much larger machines are used on commercial wind farms and many consider these large turbines to be unsightly. 'It depends on your view of the environment' says Jimmy. 'Anyone of these large steel windmills with the fibreglass blades repays its debt to the environment in a hundred working hours. What I mean by that is the amount of power, electricity and oil that is used to manufacture a turbine, to make the steel and all the parts is repaid by the turbine working at full power for a hundred hours. In other words, in a hundred hours the turbine has produced as much power as was used to manufacture it. And then after that it goes on to produce power for another twenty five years.'

The wind farm on a hill at Ballaghadereen produces six megawatts which goes into the national grid. That's enough power to fulfil the needs of three thousand houses.

'The west of Ireland is the best place in Europe for wind power' says Jimmy. 'Donegal has the highest wind speeds in Europe but Mayo is not far behind.'

At sea

The latest wind farms are being built off shore. Out at sea you can get even larger wind speeds than on land. There's no resistance to the wind from land or vegetation. There's also the factor that you can build the turbines as big as you like. There will be no objections as they can't be seen.

'I think the amount of wind power in the country will increase 'says Jimmy. 'But I see other technologies being used as well such as fuel cell technology. This is where they are using wind to produce hydrogen. The electricity form the wind is used to extract hydrogen. Then you fill your car or tractor with hydrogen and off you go.'

Near his tunnel is Jimmy's wind powered chill room. He stores his potatoes and onions in it at a constant temperature of seven degrees.

Too much wind

In January Jimmy doesn't need any ESB. In fact January is a month when he has too much electricity. So he has what he calls a dump load which goes into heating water in a large tank outside.' It's just purely to use the electricity to heat water because I have more power than I can use' says Jimmy. 'Otherwise I'd have to disconnect the turbines.'

That's where the idea of an outdoor heated swimming pool comes in. Perhaps Jimmy will get round to building it one day. I'm sure an outdoor pool in January in a windswept Co. Mayo would be a major commercial success!

Wind Energy Factfile

The first known use of wind for power was in 5000 BC when people used sails to navigate the river Nile. The Babylonians and Chinese were using wind power to pump water for irrigating crops 4,000 years ago.
Wind is free, wind farms need no fuel and the land beneath can usually still be used for farming. There are no health risks associated with the production of windpower or experienced by residents living on or near windfarms.
Windpower produces no waste or pollution of air, water or soil or greenhouse gases.
Ireland has the greatest amount of wind of any European country. It is estimated that Ireland could produce as much as ten times its electrical needs with wind power.
Denmark is the leading producer of windpower. By 2020 Denmark expects to generate 50 percent of its power consumption using wind. At present, Germany has the highest total wind capacity of any country with an output of 5,000 MW.