IRISHWIND Autumn 2020 INSIDE THIS ISSUE Building Onshore Wind – 70by30 plans Minister Ryan writes for Irish Wind Offshore wind, floating wind and Irish ports Foreword by David Connolly, IWEA CEO This has been a challenging year for our While the Climate Action Plan sets out a vision for a 70 per cent contents industry, much as it has been for so many renewable electricity system it never set out the very specific parts of Irish society, as we struggle to detail of what needs to be done by Government departments, adapt to a very new world. the system operators, the regulator and a host of other bodies to enable us to reach that target. Many of us worry for family members WELCOME TO THE AUTUMN 2020 particularly at risk from Covid-19 or have Addressing this has been the focus of the 70by30 Committee Foreword - David Connolly, IWEA, CEO EDITION OF IRISH WIND watched with trepidation as children which has brought together members from across the supply 05 return to school. chain and from various fields of expertise to produce three of a planned four-part series known as the 70by30 Implementation IWEA is the national association for the Welcome to new IWEA members Working environments have changed completely. Going to work Plan. 06 wind industry in Ireland. This magazine now means clearing a space on the kitchen table or assembling provides updates on news and events a table in a spare room, struggling with home broadband and 70by30 what can feel like a never-ending stream of conference calls. in the wind industry in Ireland and is The first report, Saving Money, proposed a series of measures Minister Eamon Ryan writes for Irish Wind to reduce the cost of renewable electricity while Saving Power 08 a resource for IWEA members in the And yet, despite this, our industry has found new ways to set out how the electricity grid could be strengthened to interests of the promotion of wind work together and to provide almost 37 per cent of Ireland’s support the integration of renewables. electricity during the height of the lockdown. energy. Building Onshore wind – the 70by30 Plan Most recently, Building Onshore Wind identifies the roadblocks 10 I would like to pay tribute to the efforts of IWEA staff, particularly and barriers that are slowing down the pace of renewable Please contact Lisa-Anne Crookes with to the events team who have put together this year’s virtual electricity development and sets out a series of targeted Annual Conference, and to our members whose commitment comments / suggestions for future recommendations to speed up the process to enable us to Henrik Stiesdal – Ireland and floating to working together on our committees and working groups connect the 4,000 MW of onshore wind we need by 2030. editions on [email protected] never wavered. 13 Offshore Work on the fourth report, Building Offshore Wind, is already In particular, the work of our Covid-19 working group, headed well underway and we look forward to launching it later in the Rosslare and the Offshore plans up by Ronan O’Meara, ensured that we were able to effectively year and showing Minister Eamon Ryan how the enhanced 16 pool information and coordinate responses to a rapidly target of 5 GW of offshore wind by 2030 can be achieved. changing situation. His appointment, and a new Programme for Government that Building alliances in rural Ireland Building the framework has climate action as a top priority, gives us a tremendous 20 Despite the difficulties we can look back on 2020 to date as a opportunity to grow over the next ten years but some of the year where we started to build the policy framework that will longstanding challenges must still be faced. enable us to deliver the Climate Action Plan. RESS results Dispatch down is now at record levels, costing industry tens 28 Finally, after years of planning, the first auctions took place in of millions every year and undermining our efforts to displace the new Renewable Electricity Support Scheme. Nineteen new fossil fuels. wind farms – 479 MW of capacity – won contracts and this Autumn Generation Table represents the first significant step towards the 2030 Climate The Wind Energy Guidelines have still not been published and 32 Action Plan targets. we must continue to work against the real possibility of a set of guidelines being produced that cripple onshore wind energy While the price for consumers was significantly lower than in development. REFIT we know that we can, and must, do better. We have already identified ways of improving future auction rounds to And while there can be no doubt about the importance of make them more effective, to deliver lower prices and to unlock offshore wind energy to this Government the simple truth is tens of millions of euro in investment for rural Ireland. that the Marine Planning and Development Management Bill has not been published and it will require cross-party support And as we settle into a system of annual RESS auction rounds we to get it through the Oireachtas within the next 12 months. are also seeing exciting signs in the Corporate PPA market with new deals announced this year that suggest this is becoming Developing offshore wind energy will not be easy. We need an increasingly attractive route to market for some generators. to see clarity soon on the grid connection model for offshore wind and work with the department to design an auction that ECP-2 delivers for industry and consumers. Another major success for our industry during 2020 was the publication by the CRU of ECP-2 in June. Each batch will now So there is much to do. But despite all that has happened over process 115 offers with the 25 largest projects – likely to be 2020 our industry is continuing to grow, IWEA is continuing to wind farms – guaranteed priority. With processing of offers attract new members and the potential for renewable energy in due to start in January it points to a consistent stream of new Ireland has never been greater. projects in the coming years. These are solid, tangible, achievements on which we need to build an industry for the next decade and that is why the work of our 70by30 Committee this year has been so important. The information and views set out inside by external contributors are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of IWEA. Pictures in collage from IWEA members and Global Wind Day entries. THE IRISH WIND ENERGY ASSOCIATION 05 Sponsorship Packages are now available. If you IWEA Doyle Shipping Group (DSG) are an Irish owned Marine and Logistics Company operating in Ireland are interested in sponsorship opportunities please since 1886. We have offices in all the major ports such as Belfast, Greenore, Dublin, Cork, Fenit, Sponsorship Welcomes contact Lorraine Killick, Membership & Events Foynes and Limerick. We employ approximately 500 people on the Island of Ireland and our services Manager at [email protected] or 086 7325012. New include but are not limited to Stevedoring, Port Agency, Towage, Warehousing, boat hire, Onshore 2020/2021 Members Contact Pat Brennan and Offshore Wind Handling and Project cargoes of all sorts. 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