Darragh McCullough: Solar should be the magic bullet - so why am I reluctant to pull the trigger? - battery storage systems

Recently, the gultyne Agricultural College held another wonderful open day around the theme of renewable energy.
This is a topic close to my heart because I have been bothered about whether to install solar panels on a family farm or not.
On paper, this is a No. brainer.
For most of the year, I used a lot of electricity to get the fridge to buy flowers, and then when we turned on the big industrial fan to dry the bulb, I burned on another truck.
Our annual electricity bill is only € 20,000, four to five times that of a typical dairy farm.
Solar energy should be a magic bullet because the fridge works the hardest when the temperature is highest and the sun is burning.
This is also the time when solar panels generate the most power.
To sum up, companies such as TAMS or gardening grants offer the possibility of 40 pc donations for capital costs, in my case the cost of capital is about € 50,000.
I should be able to offset the electricity bill for about 25 PCs for this expenditure, so the return is about 6 to 7 years.
So what stopped me, a moving door post.
The cost of technology is declining.
For example, the cost of solar panels has dropped by 60 PCs over the past six years.
In addition, the technology itself is constantly improving and improving.
So while battery storage is still very expensive and not efficient right now, it can also change in the next few years.
We were told about 20 years ago that there would be wind turbines behind our shed and biomass boilers.
The reality is that many of the few small turbines on the farm I know are not even running because the economy is not optimistic.
As for the biomass boiler-
Ask the farmers who grow willow trees and mango grass.
Many people are very disappointed with the results of all this. hundreds of acres of mango grass have been torn off and willow trees have not been harvested.
For small-there's still no way
The scale (yes, the solar panel installation size of € 50,000 is still very small) to feed back the remaining power to the grid at any reasonable speed.
So farmers like me are cautious.
There's so much false dawn for us that makes us fall in love with the latest Gigi-Technical wizards.
But it's not just fast-moving technology that keeps people on the lookout.
I met a lot of farmers in Gurteen who had nightmares about the stories they were trying to connect to the energy grid, whether it was gas or electricity.
In fact, the civil servant told me that farmers have to come up with a "hello money" of 8,500 euros just to be able to talk to people like Eirgrid about the possibility of connecting to the grid.
This is before getting the planning permission or paying any fees for the actual connection.
By that stage, you will see 100,000 euros in funding.
When this is compared to systems in countries like Denmark --
Thousands of farmers and communities connect to the grid through a simple network
When you use power, the metering system runs in one direction, and when you supply power to the grid, the metering system runs in reverse --
This will make you wonder what's wrong here.
When Minister Dennis Norton, who is in charge of the entire energy sector, is challenged in this regard, his response is that his priority is to have large businesses install turbines or solar panels connected to the grid, to ensure Ireland meets at least some of its renewable energy targets in the EU nearly a decade ago.
To be fair, time is not good for us because we avoid fines estimated to be hundreds of millions of people.
But at the same time, the so-called
Democracy in energy supply is brewing.
This will be an energy revolution in which anyone investing in renewable energy can access the State Grid and do their part to make Ireland greener and in this
This is exactly what is happening on farms across Europe and the UK.
While Minister Norton will point out that the government will allocate 22 euros for the renewable energy initiative over the next decade, I don't think it will be a lack of grants, which will be a stumbling block for a long time --
Waiting for the revolution to come
Every energy supplier needs access to the monopoly of the power grid.
Whether it's a 100,000 euro price tag for turbines or solar panels that offer more than a few households of electricity, or a lack of flexibility for gas network injection points, the cake is being split up by multinational companies.
We have seen how toxic the wind energy sector has become due to the inability of local communities to benefit from any large development, and now solar farm technology is playing the same role.
The biggest irony of all this is that the agricultural sector is required to re-invent itself as a more eco-friendly, low-emission sector.
Therefore, on the one hand, we have government funding for various "smart" agricultural programs that aim to improve the efficiency of farmers' resource use.
For a long time, the bigger game
Farmers who help Ireland reduce its dependence on imports to meet its 90 pc energy needs and supplement declining agricultural incomes are being hampered by government monopolies that control our energy grid.
Our European competitors are moving towards the holy grail of carbon neutral, and increased emissions will make Irish agriculture a shock.
Environmental policy bag of Ireland.
The energy industry remains the territory of the international elite.