This is a list of electricity-generating power stations in Northern Ireland , sorted by type and name, with installed capacity (May 2011).
Note that the Digest of United Kingdom energy statistics (DUKES) maintains a comprehensive list of United Kingdom power stations, accessible through the Department of Energy and Climate Change here.
A red background denotes a power station that is no longer operational.
*Joint venture with Scottish and Southern Energy
Northern Ireland was home to the world's first commercially viable tidal stream generator. [5] Trials were begun in Scotland then in England, before Marine Current Turbines installed the thousand-tonne [6] SeaGen turbine at the mouth of Strangford Lough. The lough was chosen because it has one of the fastest tidal flows in the world. The installation went live and was connected to the grid in mid-December, 2008, injecting an extra 1.2 megawatts of electricity. [7]
The turbine is scheduled to produce power for five years, though Marine Current Turbines were reported to have asked for an extension beyond their 2013 contract. [8] By March 2010, the turbine had passed an operating time of over 1,000 hours - a first for any marine energy device. [8]
Impact to the environment was closely scrutinised. [6] The device, built in Belfast's famous Harland and Wolff shipyard, is rigged with a sonar device which stops the motion of the rotor blades when it detects marine lifeform near it. While there has been no negative affect to the environment - a special protected wildlife area - it has been noticed that porpoises stop communicating while passing the device. [8]
Strangford Lough is a large sea lough or inlet in County Down, in the east of Northern Ireland. It is the largest inlet in Ireland and the wider British Isles, covering 150 km2 (58 sq mi). The lough is almost fully enclosed by the Ards Peninsula and is linked to the Irish Sea by a long narrow channel at its southeastern edge. The main body of the lough has at least seventy islands along with many islets (pladdies), bays, coves, headlands and mudflats. Historically it was called 'Lough Coan', while 'Strangford' referred to the narrow sea channel. It is part of the 'Strangford and Lecale' Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Strangford Lough was designated as Northern Ireland's first Marine Conservation Zone in 2013, and has been designated a Special Area of Conservation for its important wildlife.
Tidal power or tidal energy is harnessed by converting energy from tides into useful forms of power, mainly electricity using various methods.
Portaferry is a small town in County Down, Northern Ireland, at the southern end of the Ards Peninsula, near the Narrows at the entrance to Strangford Lough. It is home to the Exploris aquarium and is well known for the annual Gala Week Float Parade. It hosts its own small Marina, the Portaferry Marina. The Portaferry - Strangford Ferry service operates daily at 30-minute intervals between the villages of Portaferry and Strangford, less than 1500 metres apart, conveying about 500,000 passengers per annum. It had a population of 2,514 people in the 2011 Census.
Energy in the United Kingdom came mostly from fossil fuels in 2021. Total energy consumption in the United Kingdom was 142.0 million tonnes of oil equivalent in 2019. In 2014, the UK had an energy consumption per capita of 2.78 tonnes of oil equivalent compared to a world average of 1.92 tonnes of oil equivalent. Demand for electricity in 2014 was 34.42 GW on average coming from a total electricity generation of 335.0 TWh.
The United Kingdom is the best location for wind power in Europe and one of the best in the world. By 2023, the UK had over 11 thousand wind turbines with a total installed capacity of 28 gigawatts (GW): 14 GW onshore and 14 GW offshore, the sixth largest capacity of any country. Wind power generated about 25% of UK electricity, having surpassed coal in 2016 and nuclear in 2018. It is the largest source of renewable electricity in the UK.
Marine currents can carry large amounts of water, largely driven by the tides, which are a consequence of the gravitational effects of the planetary motion of the Earth, the Moon and the Sun. Augmented flow velocities can be found where the underwater topography in straits between islands and the mainland or in shallows around headlands plays a major role in enhancing the flow velocities, resulting in appreciable kinetic energy. The Sun acts as the primary driving force, causing winds and temperature differences. Because there are only small fluctuations in current speed and stream location with minimal changes in direction, ocean currents may be suitable locations for deploying energy extraction devices such as turbines. Other effects such as regional differences in temperature and salinity and the Coriolis effect due to the rotation of the earth are also major influences. The kinetic energy of marine currents can be converted in much the same way that a wind turbine extracts energy from the wind, using various types of open-flow rotors.
The production of renewable energy in Scotland is a topic that came to the fore in technical, economic, and political terms during the opening years of the 21st century. The natural resource base for renewable energy is high by European, and even global standards, with the most important potential sources being wind, wave, and tide. Renewables generate almost all of Scotland's electricity, mostly from the country's wind power.
Renewable energy in the United Kingdom contributes to production for electricity, heat, and transport.
The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) Ltd is a UKAS accredited test and research center focusing on wave and tidal power development based in the Orkney Islands, UK. The centre provides developers with the opportunity to test full-scale grid-connected prototype devices in unrivalled wave and tidal conditions.
SeaGen was the world's first large scale commercial tidal stream generator. It was four times more powerful than any other tidal stream generator in the world at the time of installation. It was successfully decommissioned by SIMEC Atlantis Energy Limited in summer 2019, having exported 11.6GWh to the grid since 2008.
Marine Current Turbines Ltd (MCT), is a United Kingdom-based company which is developing tidal stream generators. It is owned by the German automation company, Siemens.
The Dash for Gas was the 1990s shift by the newly privatized companies in the electricity sector of the United Kingdom towards generation of electricity using natural gas. Gas consumption peaked in 2001 and has been in decline since 2010.
New Zealand has large ocean energy resources but does not yet generate any power from them. TVNZ reported in 2007 that over 20 wave and tidal power projects are currently under development. However, not a lot of public information is available about these projects. The Aotearoa Wave and Tidal Energy Association was established in 2006 to "promote the uptake of marine energy in New Zealand". According to their 10 February 2008 newsletter, they have 59 members. However, the association doesn't list its members.
Evopod is a unique tidal energy device being developed by a UK-based company Oceanflow Energy Ltd for generating electricity from tidal streams and ocean currents. It can operate in exposed deep water sites where severe wind and waves also make up the environment.
The Oyster is a hydro-electric wave energy device that uses the motion of ocean waves to generate electricity. It is made up of a Power Connector Frame (PCF), which is bolted to the seabed, and a Power Capture Unit (PCU). The PCU is a hinged buoyant flap that moves back and forth with movement of the waves. The movement of the flap drives two hydraulic pistons that feed high-pressured water to an onshore hydro-electric turbine, which drives a generator to make electricity. Oyster was stationed at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) at its Billia Croo site in Orkney, Scotland until the company ceased trading in 2015.
Marine energy or marine power refers to the energy carried by ocean waves, tides, salinity, and ocean temperature differences. The movement of water in the world's oceans creates a vast store of kinetic energy, or energy in motion. Some of this energy can be harnessed to generate electricity to power homes, transport and industries.
A tidal farm is a group of multiple tidal stream generators assembled in the same location used for production of electric power, similar to that of a wind farm. The low-voltage powerlines from the individual units are then connected to a substation, where the voltage is stepped up with the use of a transformer for distribution through a high voltage transmission system.
A tidal stream generator, often referred to as a tidal energy converter (TEC), is a machine that extracts energy from moving masses of water, in particular tides, although the term is often used in reference to machines designed to extract energy from run of river or tidal estuarine sites. Certain types of these machines function very much like underwater wind turbines, and are thus often referred to as tidal turbines. They were first conceived in the 1970s during the oil crisis.
The United Kingdom has a National Grid that covers most of mainland Great Britain and several of the surrounding islands, as well as some connectivity to other countries. The electrical sector supplies power at 50 Hz AC, and ~240 volts is supplied to consumers. In 2020 the electricity sector's grid supply came from 55% low-carbon power, 36.1% fossil fuelled power, and 8.4% imports. Renewable power is showing strong growth, while fossil fuel generator use in general and coal use in particular is shrinking, with historically dominant coal generators now mainly being run in winter due to pollution and costs, and contributed just 1.6% of the supply in 2020.
As of 2018, hydroelectric power stations in the United Kingdom accounted for 1.87 GW of installed electrical generating capacity, being 2.2% of the UK's total generating capacity and 4.2% of UK's renewable energy generating capacity. This includes four conventional hydroelectric power stations and run-of-river schemes for which annual electricity production is approximately 5,000 GWh, being about 1.3% of the UK's total electricity production. There are also four pumped-storage hydroelectric power stations providing a further 2.8 GW of installed electrical generating capacity, and contributing up to 4,075 GWh of peak demand electricity annually.
