Make no mistake: the withdrawal of Corio Generation from Ireland’s first tranche of offshore wind farms is a body blow to the Government’s ambitious renewable energy plans for the period up to 2030.
Corio applied to build a 450 megawatt (MW) wind farm on the Sceirde Rocks off Connemara, a €1.4 billion project that would have powered 350,000 homes and helped deliver a chunk of the needed carbon emissions reduction.
The withdrawal announcement reduces the number of expected key projects from six to five, with four developers getting state contracts under “phase one” of an auction process.
“This is devastating news for our colleagues on the Sceirde Rocks project and communities along the west coast of Galway which are now likely to lose out on significant job opportunities and millions of euro in investment,” said Wind Energy Ireland (WEI) chief executive Noel Cunniffe.
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“It is also a serious setback to our long-term ambition for a thriving offshore wind energy industry on Ireland’s west coast as without Sceirde Rocks it will be more challenging to build a supply-chain in the region.”
WEI warned last year of risks associated with all six projects, saying these needed to be supported at every step and given opportunity to engage with relevant state agencies to offer the best possible chance of getting planning permission.
One industry source, who declined to be identified, said the news “highlights how precarious the other projects are. Every effort must be made to ensure five does not become four”.
The widespread reaction standing out is one of surprise that they would pull out at this point after a planning application, which remains live, was submitted in January.
Corio Generation declined to comment on why it was withdrawing.
But a source close to the project told the Currency website that “more detailed site investigation work and studies over recent months have made it clear that specific conditions and engineering challenges at the Sceirde Rocks site mean we are unfortunately no longer in a position to proceed with the project”.
This led to concerns it would not be sufficiently resilient to withstand extreme weather. Difficulties cited were partly submerged rocky areas off the coast and seabed geology; severe wave patterns due to seabed topography; extreme wave height during recent winter storms (including waves of up to 23 metres) and unusually strong seabed currents during those storms.
The nearest land point at Carna experienced the highest wind speeds when Storm Éowyn hit Ireland in January – with gusts in excess of 180km/h. This has led to speculation that Atlantic conditions may be too hostile and it raised questions about the technology, given turbines of more than 300 metres tall were to be deployed at sea.
Dr Val Cummins, chief impact officer with the Simply Blue Group renewables company, said it remained the point that “Ireland has the biggest offshore wind resource in Europe”,
This, she said, could run to “70 gigawatts (GW), enough to power 70 million homes, in a marine area seven times our land mass, presenting perhaps the greatest economic opportunity in the history of the State”.
In exploiting this, the State has to wrestle with emerging technology, along with harsh marine conditions and cost, but all this is doable, she said.
Turbine design is being enhanced in light of increased extreme weather. China has developed turbines that can withstand typhoons; a demonstrator floating turbine deployed north of Bilbao, Spain, remained constantly upright during extreme conditions associated with Storm Ciarán in late 2023.
The west of Ireland will suffer from the loss of the promised €70m social fund and delay in creating jobs
— Dr Mark White, marine energy consultant
Even floating offshore wind technology “is developed, tested and ready for commercial deployment” further out to sea in more demanding places, Cummins said.
“The technology has been operating in harsh marine environments since 2017. Demonstration projects in Scotland, Norway and Portugal have proven viability even in severe conditions, thanks to advancements in materials, anchoring systems, dynamic cabling, process design and specialised service operations vessels.”
Weather windows for installation, operations and maintenance are a challenge for wind projects off Ireland’s Atlantic coast, she said, “but these are not show-stoppers and risks can be managed with technological solutions. There is also an upside: windier conditions mean enhanced capacity factors.”
The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications declined to comment on its discussions with Corio and on whether the State will keep a €30 million “bid bond” it paid.
While the loss of Corio was regrettable, Minister for Energy and Climate Darragh O’Brien said “it was always considered that there could be attrition from phase one, and Government’s phase-two policy [the next auction of State contracts due this year] was introduced specifically to build on the phase-one contribution and achieve our targets”.
The Government remained “very committed” to the delivery of offshore wind, he said.
“Collectively, phase-one projects, being progressed through planning, would deliver almost four gigawatts (4,000MW) of offshore renewables – out of a 5GW overall target for 2030,” O’Brien said.
“In addition, we will be progressing a new national DMAP [designated marine area plan] process to identify additional sites for the development of offshore wind, as well as holding the second ORESS [offshore] auction this year, which will be the 900MW Tonn Nua site off the south coast.”
The Government is rolling out an expanded approach to DMAPs – sites where wind farms can be developed tied into auctions for private industry – with 20-year contracts for successful bidders to supply renewable power to the grid.
The “national DMAP” approach means instead of sequential roll-out of sites, starting off the south coast and moving to the west, multiple locations will be selected and auctioned in one go to accelerate the process. This includes floating wind and demonstrator sites for the technology.
Marine energy consultant Dr Mark White said every effort should be made to develop the Sceirde site, as it was always known the project was realisable, though challenging, given the likely sea conditions and terrain.
He criticised Corio for abandoning the project at this point and of trying to limit reputational damage in an effort to recover the bond.
“It should have waited for a decision from An Bord Pleanála. If it said ‘yes’, Corio would have a saleable asset,” White said. If planning permission was refused, he said it could make a case for recovering the bond.
He rejected the reported reasons for the decision, suggesting the site was found in recent surveys “to be worse than what anybody thought”.
Relevant data should have been collected on time, he said, and Corio should have modelled for a one-in-a-100 year storm – as would be standard practice.
Its withdrawal would make achieving the Government’s 2030 climate targets difficult to achieve, and “it’s going to be hard to avoid [European Union] fines because of this”.
Dr White said that “the west of Ireland will suffer from the loss of the promised €70m social fund and delay in creating jobs at west coast harbours as roll-out of DMAPs to the west coast is still unconfirmed time-wise”.
Corio amassed a 30GW global portfolio of projects, but the writing has been on the wall for some time. It has seen three sets of redundancies recently, including members of the Sceirde Rocks team.
Its owners, Australia’s Macquarie Bank, put it up for sale, but there were no bidders. Last week Corio said it planned to restructure its offshore wind development business to focus on a smaller portfolio of projects.
There has been a souring of sentiment – as cost inflation, squeezed supply chains and more expensive capital became an increasing burden – and it struggled to push ahead with projects as fast as planned.
In November, the French conglomerate Total Energies paused development of its 3GW offshore wind project in New York – a joint venture with Corio – citing political uncertainties following Donald Trump’s US presidential election win. It is understood big losses were incurred arising from this.
Trump’s detestation of renewables has further spooked markets since. These are negatives that faced Corio and are confronting all developers, including the remaining five in play here, as they attempt to also reconcile particular challenges pertaining to Ireland and its coastal areas.
On the positive side, the economic – and climate – case for renewables is more compelling than ever with Europe at the point of securing a record of 50 per cent of its energy, dominated by wind and solar, from this source.
Ireland still has some of the best offshore wind resources in the world and an incredible opportunity to build a resilient economy backed by affordable, clean, energy.
“The fundamentals have not changed,” Cunniffe said.
“But we cannot afford to lose projects like this. We need to build confidence in Ireland among investors and the international supply-chain.
“The Government [must] work closely with industry to deliver the phase-one projects and subsequent phases to come.”
