A third of electricity now comes from wind
ONE-THIRD of Ireland’s electricity now comes from wind, according to a new report from the Irish Wind Energy Association.
There were 24 new wind farms connected in 2019 with a combined installed capacity of 463MW, making it the second-best year on record for new connections. There is now more than 4,100MW of installed wind energy capacity in the Republic of Ireland.
In February and December of last year wind energy provided more electricity than natural gas.
Dr David Connolly, CEO of IWEA, said: “Wind energy in Ireland is going from strength to strength. “Every year we are cutting more CO2 emissions, reducing Ireland’s dependency on imported fossil fuels and driving down the wholesale price of electricity.
“The 24 new wind farms we connected last year will enable us to build on our success in 2019, and we have already set new records for the amount of wind energy on the system in the first two months of 2020.”
He said wind energy in Ireland has not come close to matching its potential.
“Our target in the Climate Action Plan is to double our installed onshore wind capacity and we are confident we have the pipeline to enable us to do so,” he said. “We also have enormous offshore wind energy resources with more than 12 GW of offshore projects at some stage of development.
“With the right planning systems, on land and offshore, and the right policies, there is no reason why most of Ireland’s electricity should not be coming from wind energy in the second half of this decade.”
However, he said there is concern about the amount of wind energy lost every year. In 2019 this amounted to more than just under 8pc of total production — enough to power more than 200,000 homes.
This, Connolly said, is due to ‘dispatch down’ which occurs when EirGrid instructs a wind farm to produce less electricity or even to shut down entirely
“We need a stronger transmission system to ensure that we are not wasting electricity… we are going to need a plan to build a stronger electricity grid,” said Connolly.