Only three wind projects secure contracts in Irish renewables auction
Only three wind projects secure contracts in Irish renewables auction | Windpower Monthly
Meanwhile, the provisional average strike price was up to €100.47/MWh from €97.87/MWh in RESS 2 and €74.08/MWh in RESS 1, Eirgrid noted.
Contracts
SSE Renewables secured a 101MW contract for the Yellow River wind farm in County Offaly, while Orsted secured one for its 43.2MW Farranrory project in Tipperary. The third wind-related contract was for 4.2MW (Bradan wind farm).
Solar fared slightly better than wind in the auction, with 497.6MW awarded, but this was significantly down on the more than 1.5GW awarded for RESS 2.
‘Extremely disappointing’
Wind Energy Ireland described the result as “extremely disappointing” and said it highlighted a need for urgent reform of how wind power is developed in Ireland. The increase in strike price could have been even higher, it noted, had the Government not provided partial indexation in this auction and factored curtailment into the terms and conditions of the auction.
Noel Cunniffe, CEO of Wind Energy Ireland, said: “We cannot ignore the reality that this is the third auction for onshore wind and solar and when we should be seeing prices going down, and the volume of renewable energy winning contracts rising, we are seeing the exact opposite. At a time when we should be accelerating the delivery of renewable energy, we are slowing down.”
The critical issue remains the “failure of the Irish planning system” to meet its own timelines for processing applications for renewable energy projects, he added. This week marks one year since the last onshore wind farm received planning permission from An Bord Pleanála, he noted.
“Dozens of wind energy projects are in planning limbo. They are supposed to get their decisions in 18 weeks but the average decision time for a wind project is well over 90 weeks,” he said. “The system isn’t working. We are calling on the Government to meet with ourselves and with our colleagues in the solar industry to review the auction design ahead of next year’s auction and to examine the entire system for delivering onshore renewable energy in Ireland. Business as usual doesn’t cut it anymore.”
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.