Over 80% of people support the use of wind power in Ireland, according to a new survey for the Irish Wind Energy Association.
The poll – carried out on behalf of the IWEA by Interactions – found 83% favour wind power, with 54% strongly favouring the technology marking an increase of seven percentage points on a similar survey last year.
Support was also strong (56%) for the promotion of indigenous sources of energy, instead of relying on imported fossil fuels.
Eighty percent of people polled said they would choose renewables over fossil fuels to power their homes, a 10 percentage point increase on 2017.
Wind power was also seen as delivering CO2 reduction benefits and cheaper electricity by a majority of those surveyed, with 82% supporting the former and 77% the latter.
More than half (55%) were in favour of having a wind farm built in their local area – a nine percentage point increase on 2017.
IWEA chief executive David Connolly said: “Ireland has one of the best wind resources in the world. We are ideally suited to provide low-cost renewable energy to power our homes, farms and businesses.
“This survey confirms the high levels of public support for renewable energy as more and more of us understand the critical need to decarbonise our energy system to respond to the threat of climate change.
“Wind energy will provide 30% of our electricity in 2018. This will save the taxpayer and consumer millions of euro that would otherwise be spent on imported fossil fuels.
“The development of wind energy will go some way to reducing fines the taxpayer will have to pay from 2020 for not meeting our emissions targets.
“Using wind power in combination with other technologies such as solar, batteries, interconnection, electric vehicles and heat pumps, we have developed a roadmap that would see 70% of Ireland’s electricity coming from renewables by 2030.
“This is an ambitious target but it is what we need to aim for if the government is serious about taking us from being a laggard on climate change to a world leader, providing cheaper and cleaner electricity, and helping to attract further foreign direct investment into Ireland.”
The Mount Lucas project (pictured) is one of Ireland’s wind power resources.