Ireland must add up to 300MW of onshore wind capacity every year until 2020 in order to meet its renewable electricity targets.
The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland has said that significant renewables deployment is needed to avoid stringent EU fines for missing the 40% electricity target. At present some 22.7% of electricity is derived from renewables, mainly onshore wind.
In a report today, the organisation said that a historic build rate of around 180MW per year is not enough to get Ireland over the line.
The industry must install around 125 turbines every year – or between 250MW and 300MW – to meet the targets, it said.
In addition, the SEAI said biomass use must increase as well as deployment of up to 30MW of ocean energy.
The SEAI’s head of low carbon technologies Eimear Cotter said: “Meeting our energy targets represents a huge economic and societal opportunity for the country – an opportunity too good to let pass.
“This report is the first of its kind to give a sense of the scale of what needs to be done to meet our binding EU energy targets by 2020. It demonstrates that the energy system must be looked at in its entirety with energy use in transport, and heat and power generation all inextricably linked – with efficiency and renewables options in all sectors.”
Image: Acres wind farm in Donegal (Element Power)
