OFFSHORE WIND RUSH

Concern grows as Government considers 71 applications for turbines along our coast

THE Government is considering 71 separate plans to build offshore wind farms in coastal areas across the country as it comes under growing pressure to deliver its climate targets, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned. And the Coalition has been urged not to allow a ‘gold rush’ of building offshore plants, as opposition is already mounting to plans to build a giant wind farm on the Kish and Bray banks – known as the Dublin Array – just 10km off the east coast.

Ireland produces 4,309 megawatts (MW) of wind power per year, one of the highest rates per capita in the world. The 300-plus wind farms in the Republic generate over a third of the

Target to produce 5GW of offshore power by 2030

country’s overall power, but the Arklow Bank Wind Park remains the only offshore plant, producing 25MW.

This is just 0.5% of the Government’s target to produce five gigawatts (5,000MW) of offshore wind power by 2030. And concern is growing within the Coalition that it will not be able to deliver its promise that up to 80% of the country’s power will come from renewable sources by the end of the decade, as set out in the National Development Plan and the Climate Action Plan.

As the Government seeks to ramp up the construction of offshore wind farms significantly over the coming years, the Departments of Housing and Climate Change confirmed it has received plans for 71 offshore projects it says are in ‘varying stages of progress’.

Of these, seven foreshore licences have been granted by Environment Minister Eamon Ryan ‘to inform the proposed future development of offshore wind farms’.

The seven projects at the final stage of preparation are:

■ Oriel Wind Park (Louth);

■ Dublin Array (two projects, Bray and Kish Banks, Dublin and Wicklow);

■ Codling Wind Park (two projects, Codling I and Codling II, Wicklow);

■ Sceirde Rocks Wind Farm (Connemara, Galway);

■ North Irish Sea Array (Dublin, Meath and Louth).

The department is also assessing 12 other ‘foreshore licence applications for site investigations linked to the proposed development of offshore wind farms’.

And a department spokesman told the MoS: ‘Other developers are engaged in pre-application discussions with the department for proposed site investigation licence applications around the coastline. These currently represent an additional 52 potential licence applications being assessed under the Foreshore Act.’

The Government confirmed that a new agency will be established next year, the Maritime Area Regulator Authority (Mara), with a budget of €2m to police offshore developments around Ireland’s 3,171 kilometres of coastline.

The department said it had already begun the groundwork for this, ‘including securing a budget of €2m for 2022 to allow early investment in the structuring of the new agency, as well as drafting an Implementation Plan which will include a skill needs assessment for the new body’.

It added: ‘Early priorities will be to establish the board and appoint a chief executive officer. A dedicated Mara Establishment Unit is being set up within the department, the focus of which will be to ensure Mara is as prepared as can be ahead of inviting applications for Maritime Area Consents and maritime licences in 2023.’

However, Junior Minister for Planning and Local Government Peter Burke said it will be the Government, not the new agency, that will decide how far each wind farm will be from the shore.

A proposal to develop wind farms off the coast of Waterford, which could be as close as five kilometres from shore, has caused controversy in that area. A local campaign group known as Blue Horizon argues that the 22km minimum distance being applied in other EU countries should be followed here.

The group claims no other EU country places large-scale offshore wind farms close to shore, saying the average distance to shore for EU wind farms is 59km.

Blue Horizon cited examples such as Belgium, where all offshore wind farms are placed outside a 22km zone, and Germany, where it says nearly all projects ‘are planned for areas that are much more than 30km from the coast’.

Dún Laoghaire TD Rich

‘Repeating the errors of the Celtic Tiger era’