The ESB has struck a deal to buy a company that controls a wind farm in Co Kerry.
ESB Wind Development Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the ESB, is buying Pallas Windfarm Limited, new filings with the state’s competition body show.
The deal has been referred to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC), which will conduct a preliminary investigation of the deal. Third parties have until June 19th to make any submissions on the matter.
Pallas Windfarm Limited owns Clahane wind farm, a 37.8 megawatt wind farm in Kerry, as well as an extension farm that has the capacity to generate 13.8 megawatts.
The deal “is subject to merger filing clearance by the CCPC. As such, ESB is not in a position to comment,” an ESB spokesman said in response to questions from The Irish Times.
No specifics on the value of the deal have been disclosed, but traditionally, wind farms have been valued roughly at one million euro per megawatt of capacity, which could value the Pallas deal at around €55 million.
However, the facility was bought by its current owners, The Renewable Infrastructure Group, for €72 million for the two sites in 2018, according to media reports at the time.
The most recent accounts for Pallas Windfarm Limited show that the company had a loss for the year of €1.4 million to the end of December 2021. That helped push its accumulated losses to €4.3 million. The company had sales of €6.8 million that year, down from €8.8 million the year before.
The ESB is currently in the midst of an expansion of its renewable energy output to more than 5,000 megawatts by 2040, including solar and both onshore and offshore wind assets.
That includes a joint venture with Coillte, the forestry body, which aims to develop 1 gigawatt of energy through the construction of wind farms on Coillte land.
It has also partnered with Ørsted, a Danish energy company, to jointly develop offshore wind projects in the seas around Ireland. The state goal is to deliver up to five gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy as well as complementary renewable hydrogen projects.
The ESB has also bought a number of wind farms in the past, including the Neart na Gaoithe project off the Scottish coast in 2019, and a 50 per cent share of the Inch Cape offshore wind farm, also on Scotland’s east coast.
A new study by Wind Energy Ireland showed that wind farms provided around 35 per cent of Ireland’s electricity in the first five months of 2025, with Cork and Kerry providing the most wind power.
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