Sir, – It is surprising that The Irish Times would publish an article arguing for higher electricity bills, dirtier energy and prolonged dependence on others for imported fossil fuels. These are the inevitable consequences of accepting Bill Emmott’s claim that Ireland can deploy imagined fleets of floating wind turbines by the end of 2030 (“Ireland’s failure to investigate floating wind farms is shameful”, Opinion & Analysis, November 27th).
This claim undermines Ireland’s response to the global climate emergency which is the single greatest threat to our coastal environment about which he professes to care.
Wind Energy Ireland represents the Irish floating offshore wind industry. We are currently, supported by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, working on four separate research projects with millions of euro of investment to accelerate deployment and to improve the technology.
It is more than four years since we published Revolution: A Vision for Floating Wind Energy, the first comprehensive report identifying how to deploy the technology in Ireland, whose offshore conditions are very different to that of Scotland.
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Let me be absolutely clear. It is not possible for us – and it will be our members who do this – to plan, build and deploy any large floating wind energy projects, let alone the 5GW required in the Climate Action Plan, by the end of 2030.
Ireland will be a leader in floating wind energy. Our members meet regularly with the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications to find ways to make this happen more quickly.
One of the most important steps is to build confidence in Ireland as a place in which to invest. Constructing the six offshore projects entering the planning system this year would be a very good first step.
As well as providing Irish families and businesses with enormous amounts of clean, affordable, electricity, they will help to lay the foundation on which we will build Irish energy independence. – Yours, etc,
JUSTIN MORAN,
Director of External Affairs,
Wind Energy Ireland,
Naas,
Co Kildare.
A chara, – Whenever current proposals for offshore renewable energy are promoted, their value is invariably presented in terms of how many households they will power. This is misleading, and it is time now to give up this pretence.
The proposal currently on the table is to build a necklace of massive, fixed-bottom, nearshore turbines along our east coast, across the south, by Wexford and Waterford and off Connemara. Ireland’s marine area is vast but shallow water sites, where sunlight penetrates, support the survival of sensitive species and habitats. If we industrialise these limited, precious, nearshore areas, we will do huge ecosystem damage.
It is time, therefore, that we are told how much of the proposed offshore wind energy is, in fact, required to power households, how much is for home-grown business and how much is already bagged, through power-purchase agreements, for Amazon, Microsoft, Google and other big tech, to power their ever-expanding data centre demands?
If we are to sacrifice sensitive marine ecosystems and irreparably change our coast, we absolutely must have full transparency. We need to be able to tell future generations we weighed it up carefully, and the harm we did to their environment was to produce power for a good cause. – Is mise,
GRAINNE ELLIOTT,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.