MINISTER FOR Energy Pat Rabbitte is to meet wind farm promoters and service providers amid warnings that development of the industry has stalled.
Mr Rabbitte has also told his department to speed up the process of getting EU approval for a new scheme to subsidise the latest round of wind farms.
Mr Rabbitte has also asked his officials to liaise with the Department of the Environment on a planning framework to allow development of wind farms, particularly in or close to conservation areas, which he said would be a “real challenge”.
Speaking at the annual conference of the Irish Wind Energy Association in Dublin yesterday, he said his department also needs to work with with the Department of the Environment to deliver a foreshore planning process for the development of offshore wind technologies.
Mr Rabbitte said the State “needed to focus more” on implementing strategies and reinforcing the national grid, which he said would “facilitate the build-out of renewable projects”.
While he said good progress had been made between 2005 and 2009 in the development of renewable energy, it was now vital to secure agreement from the EU for a new tariff paid to electricity generators for each unit of electricity.
The moves are in response to concern from the association that Ireland is not making good use of its wind resources.
Association chief executive Dr Michael Walsh said the State may even have to import expertise from countries such as Denmark and Germany to help it meet mandatory EU targets for 2020.
Wind-generated electricity volumes have grown significantly in the Republic, increasing by 28 per cent on average each year between 2005 and 2009. But in 2010 the level of new connections to the national grid dropped by half.
Last year also represented a 58 per cent fall in investment in the sector. Dr Walsh said there had been an absence of “a joined-up approach”, which resulted in “wild swings in the volume of activity in the sector”. He recommended the industry “should urgently commence negotiations” with the UK to ensure that Irish projects can play a part in meeting the UK’s energy needs.
“We will have the resources to meet over 15 per cent of the UK’s 2020 renewable requirements in a highly cost-effective fashion for UK consumers. This would result in additional jobs and investment in Ireland and ongoing export revenues,” he said.
“We could be world leaders in smart-energy technology and green finance but we need to stop putting barriers in the way of enterprises that want to help us meet our national targets and reduce our energy costs.”
Also critical of the regulatory framework operating in Ireland was Gregor Alexander, finance director of Scottish and Southern Energy, which owns Airtricity and is one of Europe’s leading energy producers.
Mr Alexander told 400 delegates at the conference that returns on the group’s Irish wind farms were “marginal” and more attractive returns were available in the UK.
“Of even more concern is that Ireland is being left behind in the development of offshore wind and marine generation. These technologies offer considerable export and job opportunities but Ireland is not maximising them,” he said.
In a separate development, Strangford Lough’s tidal energy turbine has passed a significant performance milestone, according to its British designer Marine Current Turbines (MCT) Ltd.
The SeaGen tidal energy turbine, which is said to be the world’s only commercial-scale tidal current turbine generating power into an electricity grid, has passed the British government’s operating performance criteria for emerging renewable technologies.