Wind power in Ireland

Figure 1: A graph of the wind power generation capacity of the Republic of Ireland from 2000 - 2018, Graph source: SEAI Electricity in Ireland Report, 2019, Data source: Eirgrid

Eddie O’Connor, then CEO of the semi-state owned peat harvesting company, Bord na Móna, commissioned the country's first "commercial wind farm" in a cutaway peat bog in County Mayo in 1992.[11] Following the first commercial wind farm, wind power deployment in the Republic of Ireland started slowly in the 1990s, but increased more rapidly from the 2000s onwards. Whilst annual wind capacity growth has been variable, it has shown an increasing trend (Figure 1).[12] Wind power has provided a steadily increasing share of electricity, from 4% (1,874 GWh) in 2005, to 28% in 2018 (10,195 GWh) (Figure 2).[12] In the first two months of 2020, wind provided 49% of electricity demand,[13] and a peak recorded output from wind power of 4,471 MW was delivered on 12 February 2021.[1] Wind is now the second largest source of electricity generation after natural gas, which accounted for 52% of electricity generated in 2018.[12]

Figure 2: Electricity generated by fuel type in the Republic of Ireland in million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe), Graph source:SEAI Electricity in Ireland Report, 2019 Datasource: Eirgrid

Concerns over energy security (Ireland has an estimated 15.4m tonnes of coal reserves, peat bogs, offshore oil and gas fields, and has extensive wind resources), climate change mitigation policies, and compliance with EU Directives for market liberalisation, have all shaped wind power development in Ireland.[14]

In the Directive[15] 2001/77/EC, otherwise known as the RES-E Directive, the European Union stated a goal to have 22% of the total energy consumed by member states to be produced from renewable energy resources by 2010. As a result, Ireland, in a report titled "Policy Consideration for Renewable Electricity to 2010", made the commitment to have 4% of its total energy consumption come from renewable energy resources by 2002 and 13.2% by 2010. The Department of Communications Marine and Natural Resources (DCMNR) founded the Renewable Energy Group (REG) which established the short term analysis group (STAG) to investigate a means of accomplishing this goal. To meet the 2010 target of 13.2%, 1,432 MW of electricity will need to be generated from renewable resources with 1,100 MW being generated from wind resources both onshore and offshore.

State financial support for the national electricity sector, and particular technologies, has been influenced by a slow move towards liberalisation, and concerns for energy security and climate change mitigation.[14] Ireland uses an industry subsidy known as the Public Service Obligation (PSO) to support the generation of electricity from sustainable, renewable and indigenous sources, including wind.[16] The PSO levy is charged to all electricity customers. As of April 2020, for residential consumers, the current PSO levy is €38.68 per year inclusive of VAT, and is displayed on the typical two-monthly electricity bill as €5.68 (€2.84 x 2) + 13.5% VAT.

The PSO levy funds the government's main mechanisms to support the generation of electricity from sustainable, renewable and indigenous sources. These mechanisms have shifted from the initial use of competitive auctions in the late 1990s, to a renewable energy feed-in tariff (REFiT) from 2006 to 2015, and back to a new renewable energy auction scheme as of 2020. Ireland's initial use of competitive auction from 1996 failed to support the intended growth in wind development. Between 2006 and 2015, the government supported a REFiT, secured for 15 years. The 2020 REFiT reference price for large wind (>5MW) is €70.98 /MWh and for small wind (<5MW) is €73.47/MWh. In June, 2020, Ireland will run its first competitive renewable energy auction under the government's new Renewable Energy Support Scheme (RESS-1).[17] RESS-1 support is structured as a two-way floating feed-in premium (FIP), roughly the difference between the 'strike price' set in the successful auction bid and the 'market reference price'. When costs of electricity suppliers exceed market revenues a Support Payment will be due to the supplier, and when market revenues exceed costs a Difference Payment will be due from the supplier. An economic analysis of the financial cost of different RESS options, estimated that a least cost auction with floating FIP mechanism would cost a domestic consumer €0.79 per month by 2030 (at 2017 prices).[18] This is significantly less than the current PSO levy rate to fund REFiT costs.

The Arklow Bank Wind Park, located 10 km off the coast of Arklow on the Arklow Bank in the Irish Sea, is Ireland's only offshore wind farm. The wind farm is owned and built by GE Energy and was co-developed by Airtricity and GE Energy. The site has 7 GE Energy 3.6 MW turbines that generate a total of 25 MW. The development of the site was originally divided into two phases with the first phase being the current installation of 7 turbines. The second phase was a partnership between Airtricity and Acciona Energy. Acciona Energy had an option to buy the project after the facility is completed. The wind farm was planned to expand to 520 MW of power. However, in 2007, Phase 2 was cancelled.[19]

Although the waters off the Atlantic coastline of Ireland have higher winds, sites along the eastern coastline such as Arklow were chosen because of the shallower waters, which are 20 m deep or less.

In Belfast, the harbour industry is being redeveloped as a hub for offshore windfarm construction, at a cost of about £50m. The work will create 150 jobs in construction, as well as requiring about 1m tonnes of stone from local quarries, which will create hundreds more jobs. "It is the first dedicated harbour upgrade for offshore wind".[20]

In 2023, the Codling project won first approval for a power price around €90/MWh by 2027.[21]

Wind turbines on County Leitrim's Corrie Mountain, where a peat slide occurred in 2008.

Grid connection is currently awarded on a 'first come, first connect' basis through Gate 3 procedures. On examination of the Gate 3 queue, there are a number of large onshore and offshore wind projects that are down the list and will, therefore, be offered grid connection towards the end of the anticipated 18-month processing period commencing in December 2009.[22]

While planning permission normally expires after 5 years, the Planning and Development Act 2000 section 41 allows for a longer period. At present it is common to apply and obtain a 10-year permission for a wind energy development. Section 42 of the above Act originally permitted a 5-year extension of the "appropriate period" provided that substantial works were carried out. This caused major problems as the term "substantial works" was not clearly defined which resulted in a large variety in interpretation of what constituted substantial works among the various planning authorities. This issue was rectified by the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2010 section 28 which inserted an additional paragraph allowing a once off extension not exceeding 5 years if "there were considerations of a commercial, economic or technical nature beyond the control of the applicant which substantially militated against either the commencement of development or the carrying out of substantial works pursuant to the planning permission"

The fourth issue regarding the generation of wind power is the Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff, or REFIT.[23] The purpose of REFIT is to encourage development of renewable energy resources. For wind power production, the current limit to the tariff is 1,450 MW. However, applications currently being processed for grid connections exceed the limit by almost 1,500 MW for a total for nearly 3,000 MW. Since the limit is 1,450 MW, many of the applications for grid connections may not eligible for the tariff.[24]

Studies by the Vattenfall electricity company found; electricity generation by Hydroelectric, nuclear stations and wind turbines in-isolation, to all have a far smaller embodied carbon footprint than other sources represented. These studies on the total life-cycle, greenhouse gas emissions, per unit of energy generated take into account the Nordic utilities cradle-to-grave construction emissions etc. These results are largely in-line with those made in 2014 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.[56] However they do not assess real-world integrated grid findings and the actual pollution emitted from the addition of wind energy into an electric grid.[57][58][59]

In a typical study of a wind farms Life cycle assessment (LCA), in isolation, it usually results in similar findings as the following 2006 analysis of 3 installations in the US Midwest, were the carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions of wind power ranged from 14 to 33 metric ton per GWh (14 - 33 g CO₂/kWh) of energy produced, with most of the CO₂ emissions coming from the production of concrete for wind-turbine foundations.[60]

However, when approached from the effects on the grid as a whole, that assess wind turbines' ability to reduce a country's total electric grid emission intensity, a study by the Irish national grid, a grid that is predominately (~70%) powered by fossil gas, (and if it was 100% gas, would result in emissions of 410 - 650 g CO₂/kWh.[61][62]) found that "Producing electricity from wind reduces the consumption of fossil fuels and therefore leads to [electric grid] emissions savings", with findings in reductions of the grid-wide CO₂ emissions to 0.33-0.59 metric ton of CO₂ per MWh (330 - 590 g CO₂/kWh).[63]

These findings were of relatively "low [emission] savings", as presented in the Journal of Energy Policy, and were largely due to an over-reliance on the results from the analysis of wind farms LCAs in isolation.[58][59] As high electric grid penetration by intermittent power sources e.g. wind power, sources which have low capacity factors due to the weather, either requires the construction of transmission to neighbouring areas, energy storage projects like the 292 MW Turlough Hill Power Station, that have their own additional emission intensity which must be accounted for,[64][65] or the more common practice of requiring a higher reliance on fossil fuels than the spinning reserve requirements necessary to back-up the more dependable/baseload power sources, such as hydropower and nuclear energy.[58]

This higher dependence on back-up/Load following power plants to ensure a steady power grid output has the knock-on-effect of more frequent inefficient (in CO₂e g/kW·h) throttling up and down of these other power sources in the grid to accommodate the intermittent power source's variable output. When one includes the intermittent sources total effect it has on other power sources in the grid system, that is, including these inefficient start up emissions of backup power sources to cater for wind energy, into wind energy's total system wide life cycle, this results in a higher real-world emission intensity related to wind energy than the in-isolation g/kW·h value, a statistic that is determined by looking at the power source in isolation and thus ignores all down-stream detrimental/inefficiency effects it has on the grid.[58] In a 2012 paper that appeared in the Journal of Industrial Ecology it states.[57]

The thermal efficiency of fossil-based power plants is reduced when operated at fluctuating and suboptimal loads to supplement wind power, which may degrade, to a certain extent, the GHG (Greenhouse gas) benefits resulting from the addition of wind to the grid. A study conducted by Pehnt and colleagues (2008) reports that a moderate level of [grid] wind penetration (12%) would result in efficiency penalties of 3% to 8%, depending on the type of conventional power plant considered. Gross and colleagues (2006) report similar results, with efficiency penalties ranging from nearly 0% to 7% for up to 20% [of grid] wind penetration. Pehnt and colleagues (2008) conclude that the results of adding offshore wind power in Germany on the background power systems maintaining a level supply to the grid and providing enough reserve capacity amount to adding between 20 and 80 g CO₂-eq/kWh to the life cycle GHG emissions profile of wind power.

Anti Wind Farm poster in Rochfortbridge, County Westmeath in 2014

According to the IPCC, wind turbines when assessed in isolation, have a median life cycle emission value of between 12 and 11 (gCO₂eq/kWh). While the more dependable alpine Hydropower and nuclear stations have median total life cycle emission values of 24 and 12 g CO₂-eq/kWh respectively.[61][62]

Regarding interconnections, Ireland is connected to adjacent UK National Grid at an electricity interconnection level (transmission capacity relative to production capacity) of 9%.[66] The two grids have a high wind correlation of 0.61, whereas the wind correlation between the Irish grid and the Danish grid is low at 0.09.[67]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wind power in Ireland.

• www.sei.ie - Sustainable Energy Ireland, Ireland's national energy agency.
• www.iwea.ie - Irish Wind Energy Association
• Arklow Bank Wind Park, GE Brochure (PDF)
• 2012 Regional map of wind farms