Wind Power

Record year for wind energy generation

Third of Ireland’s electricity now comes from wind
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4 March 2020

A third of Ireland’s energy now comes from wind according to a new report from the Irish Wind Energy Association (IWEA).

The past year saw Ireland use wind energy to meet 32.5% of national demand, the second highest percentage in Europe. Twenty-four new wind farms were built over the past year, the second best figure on-record.

However, there is concern about the amount of energy ‘lost’ (an estimated 8% of national requirement) when national energy grid operator Eirgrid instructs a wind farm to reduce or even shut down energy production for a time – a practice called ‘dispatch down’. This can occur to accommodate times where the transmission system is unable to send the energy from where it is generated to where it is needed. The second potential cause, ‘curtailment’, refers to the practice of limiting wind production to 65% of demand.

Dr David Connolly, CEO of IWEA, said: “Our target in the Climate Action Plan is to double our installed on-shore wind capacity and we are confident we have the pipeline to enable us to do so. We have enormous off-shore wind energy resource, with more than 12GW of off-shore projects at some stage of development.

“With the right planning systems on land and off-shore, 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 the decade.”

TechCentral Reporters

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