Energy from fresh air - that was the great promise which drew George Colley, then minister for energy, to Denmark in 1980. And there he was, in his velvet-collared coat, standing on the west coast of Jutland to see for himself the first two experimental wind turbines built by the Danes, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor
By 2002, wind energy accounted for 18 per cent of Denmark's electricity consumption - equivalent to 1.5 million homes.
The Danes had also become world leaders in the fast-expanding wind turbine industry, generating €3 billion a year in revenue and providing jobs for 20,000 people.
And the Republic? By the end of 2002, despite having the most favourable wind regime in Europe, there was just a handful of wind farms producing 138 megawatts (mw) of electricity, a mere 1 per cent of our consumption. That's equivalent to 100,000 homes - a fraction of the Danish figure.
Within a year, astonishingly, the national grid was pulling down its shutters to wind. Two months ago, at Eirgrid's behest, electricity regulator Tom Reeves put an embargo on further wind power contracts, saying the grid couldn't take more than the 800mw already due to come on-stream.
Despite this, in the same week, the Minister for Communications, Dermot Ahern, who is in charge of energy policy, was promoting another round of renewable energy contracts, including 140mw of wind. And that's meant to contribute to reaching the Government's declared goal of having 500mw up and running in 2005.
It's not a question of choice, though. Ireland is required by the EU directive on renewable energy to achieve a 13 per cent share for renewable sources - mainly wind - by 2010. This is a mandatory requirement as part of the EU's strategy to mitigate climate change by switching from fossil fuels.
Our energy is currently costing more than €100 million each week, of which 90 per cent is imported, says Paul Kellett of Sustainable Energy Ireland.
We are also the worst offender in Europe for breaching emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol - and that will cost us €300 million a year.
But Eirgrid (also called ESB National Grid since it was hived off from the ESB four years ago) now says it can't cope with the "avalanche" of applications from wind power developers for contracts to connect to the grid, at least until a new code is agreed about how all the wind farms will operate.
However, five years have passed since the ESB first signalled to the Government that, if we were to meet renewable energy targets, a "wind code" would need to be devised to protect the stability of the grid - for example, against sudden surges of power in gale force conditions, especially on the west coast.
It can't just be switched on or off. Simon Grimes, who manages wind power contracts for Eirgrid, cites Co Donegal, where the output of wind farms operating there often exceeds the county's electricity demand. "This is a situation that no system operator in the world has ever had to contend with." Wind power developers insist that Eirgrid should have known what was coming and prepared the ground for it.
"The PR gloss is that they were ambushed by the sudden rush of renewables, yet they themselves forecast that this would happen and did nothing in the interim to devise a strategy," one said.
Eirgrid insists that it has been working for some time on two fundamental things that need to be put in place "but as yet, for reasons outside its own control, has not been able to fully complete" - essentially because both of these require a high level of co-operation from developers and manufacturers.
Eirgrid, which says it supports the continued development of renewables, is now engaged in consultations with the industry to agree on a wind code - in effect, a set of rules governing the capabilities and functionalities of wind farms so that they can help maintain the reliability of the system.
The second requirement is for the wind turbine manufacturers to provide Eirgrid with true models of their electrical performance so that it can determine how best to re-jig the grid to accommodate wind generation - at levels even higher than the four-fold increase expected over the next three years.
The current embargo was based on an assumption that all 800mw of the grid connections already agreed would materialise.
But as Green Party TD Eamon Ryan has pointed out, not one of the 255mw in wind contracts awarded by the Department of Energy in 2001 has "lit up a single light bulb".
All we have to show after six rounds of the alternative energy scheme, at least in the wind sector, is 191mw of generating capacity.
Numerous other projects failed for one reason or another - some didn't get the required financial backing, others didn't get planning permission or simply fell apart.
The Irish Wind Energy Association did its best, but nearly every round has been characterised by recriminations of one sort or another - usually that too many of the contracts were going to the ESB subsidiaries or associates.
The ESB denies this and simply says it is "good at delivering on contracts".
Everyone agrees the crisis will be eased by the proposed 1,000mw electricity interconnector between Ireland and Britain, announced last week. This will "anchor" us to the wider European grid, making it easier for our system operators to accommodate more wind because of its unlimited back-up.
But the interconnector is good news in another way, too - it will introduce real competition into the Irish market. At present, though there is competition in electricity generation, virtually all of what's produced is sold to the ESB. And with no competition in supply, additional costs are passed on to consumers.
Thus, if carbon dioxide emissions from the ESB's fossil fuel plants were capped and it had to buy allowances on the international market, every household in the State would end up paying the bill. And that's one of the reasons the Government recently decided not to cap emissions.
Instead, it gave free allowances to the ESB and energy-intensive industry for all the carbon dioxide they currently produce - and a little more. Thus, there is no incentive to reduce emissions by switching to less carbon-intensive fuel in, say, Moneypoint or the peat-fired power stations in the midlands.
However, given the mandatory requirement to achieve a 13 per cent share for renewables by 2010, the radical thing to have done would be to restrain conventional production by closing down the peat-fired stations, which are basically carbon factories, or switching Moneypoint from coal to natural gas.
Despite its undoubted environmental advantages and the worldwide trend towards harnessing it, wind energy is still on the margins in Ireland.
"It's treated as an annoying little fly on the back of the elephant," one industry source complained. And yet wind is "our own oil well in the sky", as Paul Kellett put it.