Sir, – Stephen Collins expresses his frustration with the Government’s lackadaisical approach to the development of offshore wind platforms, which he says is threatening to become a national catastrophe (“Political determination to develop offshore wind platforms has been shamefully lacking”, Opinion & Analysis, March 10th).
Regrettably, he could have made the same comments about the Government’s gross mismanagement of the entire energy sector, particularly the failure to plan for our energy security, which will remain on a precarious knife-edge for years to come.
Stephen Collins supports his argument in quoting Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher, who said recently that Ireland risks failing to capitalise on becoming a wind energy superpower because of Government inaction.
However, this oft-mentioned notion that Ireland will be the Saudi Arabia of wind doesn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny. The expectation that European countries will in future be dependent on Ireland’s export of wind generated electricity is fanciful.
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Some statistics will help explain the true situation.
Currently Ireland’s installed wind capacity is 4.309 GW ( gigawatt hours) compared to 222.16 GW in the EU. The Coalition’s target for 2030 is to increase the capacity to 7.0 GW, most of which, if achieved, will be required for home consumption.
Many in the industry now believe even this will not be achieved, due to bureaucracy, planning, supply chain and engineering difficulties.
In contrast, the EU is on target to increase its installed wind generation capacity to around 250 to 300 GW by 2030, and many countries like Denmark, Germany and Portugal already regularly achieve over 100 per cent of their electricity demand through wind generation, according to WindEurope.com.
Significant comparative EU data for today shows that the top 20 EU countries generated over 2,500 GWh of wind electricity, while Ireland generated a mere 25 GWh.
It is clear therefore, that doubling or even trebling our offshore wind generation will leave us far short of being an exporting superpower.
EU countries are already building substantial renewable capacity, and unlike us, they have and are also rapidly installing essential back-up facilities such as nuclear, hydro, geothermal, solar, natural gas, liquefied natural gas fixed and floating facilities, biogas, as well as coal.
Accordingly, it would be naïve to expect few if any EU countries will be dependent on Ireland’s putative export potential anytime soon. – Yours, etc,
JOHN LEAHY,
Cork.