Wind

Wind energy is clean. Wind turbines won’t dirty the air we breathe because they don’t emit pollutants, like other energy sources, which means less smog, less acid rain and fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Power plants are the largest stationary source of air pollution in the world, emitting millions of tons of sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxides and carbon dioxide each year. These pollutants are believed to be the cause of global warming. Running a single 1-MW wind turbine can displace 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide in one year, which is the equivalent to planting one square mile of forest.

Wind energy works, the technology is now well proven and reliable. A wind turbine will allow you to convert wind energy into electricity to power your site.  You will also be able to sell any excess electricity for additional revenue. Up to now surplus energy produced was just dumped on to the grid for free. Given the fact that there is more wind at night when many business’ usage is low, over 50% of the energy produced may have been dumped. Even if your business used part of the energy at night, you are replacing night rate electricity which costs just 7c/kWh. ESB group have now changed their position in recent times and will now pay for the power produced. The process works by connecting a wind turbine to the National Grid at your facility (factory, hotel, office etc.). Current CER (Commission for Electricity Regulation) grid connection rules state that a wind turbine can 'spill' power back to the National Grid up to a limit of 500kW. However, in special cases, depending on the site’s infrastructure, this may be increased. Effectively your business is using the turbine to power its own plant first and then any excess power can be sold for additional revenue. This type of self-generation is known as Auto Production and falls under the group processing scheme. Project duration is between 9 and 12 months.

The size of turbine can be selected based on the energy demand profile of your site. Typical size turbines range from 100kW to 2mW in size. The higher your business’s electricity bills that you offset by using self produced electricity the better the payback.  Large scale systems usually give the quickest payback and payback as low as a few years is achievable. To ensure you reach the payback period you will need to install quality equipment.

Typical Costs & Payback

Enerpower offers a wide selection of brands, which helps insure that you get the right turbine to match your needs, manufacturers include: Vesta, Windworld, ACCA, Bonus, Siemans, Nortank, Miccon, EWT – Direct Wind, and GAMESA.

The list of services that Enerpower provide are as follows:
Feasibility studies
Wind measurement
Grid Connection studies and interaction
Planning Permission
Equipment Procurement
Project management, installation and commissioning
Project finance and draft budgets
Service and project optimization agreements
ESCO agreements also available (zero capital costs)
Power purchase agreement