How Ireland went from first to last in the race to develop offshore wind energy

Irish Times

4 days ago

In 2005,
former taoiseach Bertie Ahern
cut the ribbon on the State's first
offshore wind
farm,
Arklow Bank 1
, hailing it as a 'milestone' in the Republic's shift from fossil fuels.
The 17-turbine, 25-megawatt (MW) project, situated on a sandbank 10km off the Wicklow coast, was one of the biggest in the world and the first to deploy giant wind turbines (above 3MWs each).
For a fleeting moment, the State was in the vanguard of this new technology.
The Arklow project was operational a full three years before
Scotland connected its first offshore wind farm to the grid
.
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Fast forward 20 years, and the Republic still has just one operational offshore wind farm (Arklow) with the same generating capacity (25MW).
The farm is, however, closed for maintenance. So right now, we don't generate a single megawatt from offshore wind despite having one of the largest offshore wind resources in the world.
The problem there is that the grid can't cope with the level of energy coming from these projects
By contrast, Scotland has 10 large offshore wind farms with a cumulative capacity to generate 4.3 gigawatts (GWs) of electricity, making its offshore wind industry 172 times larger than ours.
It also has another 1.3GW under construction and another 2.3GW about to be built. Scotland is now recognised as a world leader in offshore wind.
The problem there is that the grid can't cope with the level of energy coming from these projects,
hence the government is being forced to pay operators compensation to keep their turbines partially idle, a source of significant controversy.
Either way, its offshore wind industry is a mirror image of the Republic's failure to launch. State-owned utility the ESB has more offshore assets there than here.
It gets worse. The Arklow Bank 1 project is now obsolete and the operator is attempting to get planning permission to decommission the site.
So we're likely to generate zero energy from this abundant natural resource in the short term
This is likely to happen before any of the proposed new projects here come on stream. According to insiders, the Oriel wind farm project off the Louth coast (the most advanced) won't have its turbines turning until at least 2031.
So we're likely to generate zero energy from this abundant natural resource in the short term.
How the State started first and finished last in this race is no secret.
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In 2011, the then government decided not to extend the main State subsidy for renewables – the Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff – to offshore or to solar, essentially putting all our eggs in one renewable basket, onshore wind.
In hindsight, this was a big strategic error.
Offshore wind was, and still is, more expensive and the then government's focus on onshore was intended to keep energy costs down, but it backfired.
The narrower focus combined with the slower-than-expected rollout of onshore wind projects (for planning and legal reasons) has slowed the State's decarbonisation process, leaving us more reliant (than other countries) on imported fossil fuels.
The race, from the Republic's perspective, is not lost
This reliance is perhaps the single biggest driver of high prices here.
'The difference between the approach we took and Scotland took ... Scotland went okay, yes, this is likely going to drive up electricity bills. We have to accept that because it is a more expensive technology than onshore,'
says director of external affairs at Wind Energy Ireland Justin Moran.
'On the other hand, we will decarbonise much more quickly and we will build an industry from which we can export our skills and services,' he says, noting that Aberdeen is transforming itself from an oil and gas hub into a base for offshore wind.
Moran jokes that if you're on a conference call about offshore wind energy policy, many of the accents are Scottish as companies bring in expertise from there to advise on Irish projects.
The race, from the Republic's perspective, is not lost. We could go a long way to weaning ourselves off fossil fuels, creating a self-sustainable energy sector and addressing the State's high-price culture if it moved decisively to exploit its offshore wind capacity.
But what does energy self-sufficiency look like?
Wind Energy Ireland estimates that the State could phase out fossil fuels and become energy self-sufficient if it could generate 10.7GW from onshore wind, 5.5GW from offshore wind and 6.1GW from solar.
We have just over 5GW of onshore and 1.8GW of solar installed.
The group estimates that we could deliver the 5.5GW of offshore wind in a single bound, with an investment of €24 billion, less than one full year of corporate tax receipts.
The State has the cash to commandeer this space either directly or in combination with private developers, perhaps with the State taking a minority stake. Of course, this would have to be done in parallel with a big energy grid upgrade.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the State's premier infrastructural project, the Ardnacrusha hydroelectric scheme in Co Clare
People frequently claim that we've little to show for the mountain of tax receipts piling up in the exchequer.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the State's premier infrastructural project, the Ardnacrusha hydroelectric scheme in Co Clare, which effectively electrified the State.
At one point, it was generating 80 per cent of the Republic's power needs and from renewable energy.
Back then, the fledgling Free State government spent roughly 20 per cent of its national income [€6.6 million] on the project. Today, 20 per cent of our national income equates to about €80 billion.
Is it not time that we took command of some of these projects ourselves rather than endlessly waiting for private investors?