Renewable energy to be tripled in four years

NATURAL Resources Minister Noel Dempsey has defended the Government’s renewable energy strategy, saying they plan to triple the amount of such energy over the next four years.

“We have set an ambitious target to treble the contribution by renewable energy sources from 5% of electricity produced in recent years to an annual production target of 15% by 2010,” he said yesterday.

“It is the role of Government to provide a stable business environment to encourage the development of renewable energy projects in Ireland that will meet this target.”

Mr Dempsey, who has responsibility for the energy portfolio, was launching the publication Renewable Energy Development 2006. The report provides a broad overview of current policies on renewable energy.

At present, 95% of Ireland’s energy comes from fossil fuels, of which 90% are imported.

Labour energy spokesman Tommy Broughan has said Ireland is totally unprepared to deal with the emerging energy gap.

Experts predict the world supply of oil will run dry by 2050/2060. Ireland is the ninth most oil-dependent economy in the world.

Since his appointment to the energy portfolio, Mr Dempsey said he had seen great progress made in this industry.

A support infrastructure was emerging to encourage all sectors of the economy to switch to renewable fuels or sustainable energy generation.

“Our support programmes and the accelerated liberalisation programme for green electricity have more than doubled the capacity of renewable energy-powered electricity-generating plants connected to the electricity network in the last two years,” said Mr Dempsey.

“It is my intention to build on these successes over the coming months and this report along with the forthcoming green paper on energy will provide a further forum in which industry and the public in general can input into the policy formation process.”

There are now more than 50 wind farms connected to the electricity network. In all, there are 860 megawatts (MW) of renewable capacity connected to the national grid which includes biomass, hydro and wind-powered technologies.

The renewable energy target would require growth in the sector to more than double from the 860MW currently connected to 1,650MW by 2010.

In 2004, the installed capacity of wind farms in Ireland was 339MW. In 2005, this had risen by 46% to 496MW. A further rise to 736MW is expected by the end of this year.

*For further information see www.sei.ie.