Investment in wind energy and update of national grid vital, Oireachtas committee told

Ireland is targeting 70% of its electricity generation coming from renewable sources by 2030

Wind Energy Ireland has warned against under-investment.

Ireland will need less new onshore wind farms and turbines than already exist in order to meet its 2030 renewable energy targets, an Oireachtas committee has heard.

The joint committee on climate action was addressing the strengthening of the national grid in order to bring wind and other renewable power supplies onto it to allow Ireland reach its 2030 climate improvement targets.

Ireland is targeting 70% of its electricity generation coming from renewable sources, like wind and solar energy, by 2030.

Eirgrid, which operates the national grid, currently has a consultation process ongoing over how best to upgrade the system. 

It has estimated the overall boosting of the grid will cost between €500m and €2bn.

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Wind Energy Ireland said the cost of the project should be viewed as an investment. 

Coillte’s Paul Blount, who chairs Wind Energy’s implementation policy committee, warned that under-investment in transitioning the grid to include renewables could prove more costly in the long-run and would be akin to investing hugely in new trains but not spending on upgrading the tracks.

Wind Energy Ireland told the committee that while less infrastructure than some might have feared will be required to boost onshore wind capacity, challenges remain to meet the "enormous potential" for offshore wind in terms of the planning system, the grid system and route-to-market for wind farm developers.

It said completion of the Greenlink interconnector between Ireland and the UK and the Celtic interconnector between Ireland and France by 2023 and 2026, respectively, will be vital. 

"Offshore wind energy has the potential to transform our energy system and our economy," said Wind Energy Ireland's acting CEO Noel Cunniffe.

Wind Energy also said public acceptance for new wind farms remains high including in rural Ireland.

Eirgrid has proposed four approaches to redeveloping the grid:

• Generation-led, connecting renewable energy from locations where the grid is already strong; 
• Developer-led, whereby new sources of power are connected wherever new wind farms are built; 
• Technology-led; 
• Demand-led, which would see government policy determining where large energy users locate in Ireland.

Wind Energy Ireland told the committee it would favour a blend of all four approaches.

When asked about the prospect of capping the amount of energy big data centres use, Eirgrid’s chief innovation officer Liam Ryan told the committee that it would be a matter for the Government. 

However, he did say Eirgrid is open to the idea of shifting data centres away from the Greater Dublin area, thus removing their potential drain on the capital’s energy supply, and having them more evenly distributed around the country.

Currently, any new data centre operator opening in the Dublin area is required to have its own back-up generators.