Paul O'Donoghue

IRELAND’S PLANS TO develop its offshore wind industry are at a tipping point.

The country has ambitious plans to build huge projects around the coast. The plan is that these offshore wind farms would help meet Ireland’s electricity needs, providing a sustainable form of energy as we transition away from polluting fossil fuels.

In fact, Ireland plans to build so many of these offshore wind farms that not only would they meet the state’s electricity needs, but they would ideally generate surplus energy, meaning we could export electricity to mainland Europe.

They are seen as a long-term, clean source of power which would increase Ireland’s energy security while potentially making the nation richer.

On paper, this all sounds amazing – and many have claimed that the plan gives Ireland the potential to become the ‘Saudi Arabia of offshore wind’.

But this vision received a major blow last week with the scrapping of the planned Sceirde Rocks development, which would have seen up to 30 turbines built off the coast of Galway.

A planning application for the project was submitted in January. But last week, the company behind the plans announced that it wouldn’t go ahead with the project.

The Currency reported that this was due to the developers realising that the site would have been vulnerable to extreme weather, including waves of up to 23 metres.

Apparently, the issue was first realised during strong storms over the winter.

The decision was a serious blow to Ireland’s vision of developing its offshore sector: although the State had planned to have 5 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind energy operating by 2030, that is no longer possible without the Sceirde Rocks project.

It’s often estimated that about 20 GW would meet all of Ireland’s electricity needs – so having 5GW by 2030 would have been a big step in the right direction.

To put this in practical terms, there are 1,000 megawatts (MW) in every GW, and 1 MW of offshore wind energy could meet the electricity demands of about 750 homes.

Sceirde Rocks was a 450MW project – so 0.45GW – so would have produced enough energy for about 350,000 homes.

By March, there were six offshore wind farms which had a reasonable chance of being completed by 2030. Sceirde Rocks was one of them.

These six developments had a combined capacity of slightly under 4.3 GW; without Sceirde, that number will drop to around 3.8GW, almost a quarter of Ireland’s 5GW target.

Government inaction

One of the reasons Ireland is lagging is the slow pace of government action on tackling climate change.

Offshore wind is a relatively new technology involving a massive, long-term investment, and private companies tend to want to get state contracts before they build wind farms.

This is where Ireland’s ‘ORESS’ [Offshore Renewable Electricity Support Scheme] comes in.

Under the first version of this, called ORESS 1, private companies which were already developing their own project sites bid for government contracts.

These contracts are extremely valuable, as they guarantee that the State will buy the electricity produced by an offshore wind farm at a certain price.

That makes projects much more secure, as the developer knows they’ll have a means to sell their electricity after investing massive amounts of time and money.

Of the six developments mentioned earlier, four won contracts under ORESS 1- and Sceirde was one of them.

The two projects which were unsuccessful in ORESS 1 still have to make sure they find someone who will buy the electricity produced by their wind farms.

Although the developers of each have said they are confident of signing deals with large companies that want the power, these agreements have not yet materialised.

So the fact that one of the four ORESS 1 winners is no longer going ahead with its project is bad news, as it would have been hoped that they were a lock and could therefore contribute to Ireland’s 2030 goals for wind power.

One might ask that if one of these ORESS 1 projects is gone, why doesn’t Ireland just start some new projects under an ORESS 2?

That was the idea, but progress is slow.

The government is planning an ORESS 2.1 auction, but it will be different compared to ORESS 1.

To apply for ORESS 1 funding, developers had to earmark sites they had chosen to build wind farms on themselves.

However, in ORESS 2.1 – and under all future ORESS auctions – the government will instead decide where new offshore wind farms get built.

In theory, this is a good thing because it will allow the state to manage resources like the grid better, rather than rely on what private companies are doing.

But to achieve this, the government needed to pass new, complicated legislation which it has been extremely slow to do.

The plan was to hold the ORESS 2.1 auction in 2023; now, the hope is it will be ready by the middle of this year.

Planning delays

Because of how long Ireland’s planning process takes, it will be impossible for an ORESS 2.1 winner to get a contract in 2025 and complete construction by 2030. At least six years would be needed, and even that’s an optimistic timeline.

So what does this mean for Ireland’s 2030 targets?

Ireland has the aim of generating 80% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Various sources have put the country on track to miss that target, such as an estimate published last August.

Ireland’s offshore projects were factored into those numbers – so the less offshore wind we produce, the further away we will be from meeting the generation targets.

There are other 2030 goals that the offshore projects factor into. For example, Ireland is aiming to reduce its emissions by 51% by 2030 compared to 2018.

As things stand, it’s estimated that Ireland’s actual emissions reductions will be in the region of 29% – again, below the target.

The cancellation of the Sceirde Rocks will likely mean even lower emissions reductions, putting us even further away from our target.

These targets are EU binding, which also means that missing them leaves us open to penalties.

Those penalties have a level of uncertainty around them too, given that many EU member states will likely miss their climate targets – it’s not clear if officials will pursue financial and legal action against all of them.

But arguably, developing these renewable projects is something Ireland should do anyway.

The energy price spikes of 2022 demonstrated the importance of having energy security. Ireland’s offshore wind sector could, in large part, provide that.

But Sceirde Rocks pulling out is a case of one of the most important projects falling at the first major hurdle.

Big infrastructure projects face being tied up for years in long appeals and judicial reviews. Some of the offshore projects have already faced this challenge.

The Sceirde Rocks failure bodes ill for both Ireland’s ambition to overhaul its way of producing electricity, and for its multitude of 2030 goals.

With only five potential windfarms now standing (three of which have secure routes to market), Ireland should look to make the planning process as quick and simple as possible.

Delays and failures aren’t factored into the plan – we can’t afford any more.