Wind energy passes major milestone

New figures suggest the amount of wind energy connected to the electricity grid on the island of Ireland exceeded 1,000MW over the course of 2007.


Michael Walsh, chief executive of the Irish Wind Energy Association (IWEA), said that this was an important milestone on the road to a sustainable energy future for Ireland.

He added that it had been made possible by investments worth more than Euro 1bn from the renewable energy generation sector.

“It is clear that wind power is playing the central role in meeting our national renewable energy targets,” Mr Walsh said.

“Private investors in the wind energy sector are keen to move forward with their projects, but their commitment has to be matched with the delivery of the substantial network infrastructure that is needed to allow continued growth of our renewable wind energy resource.”

The recent electricity benchmarking study from Forfas, Ireland’s national policy and advisory board for enterprise and technology, indicated that renewable energy accounted for 8.6% of total energy generated in 2006 – up from 4.8% in 2004.

James Cooper

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