JOINT COMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS:IRELAND IS falling well behind other countries in the development of offshore renewable energy, an Oireachtas committee has heard.
The target of producing 40 per cent of our energy needs from renewable sources by 2020 is easily achieveable, David Manning, public affairs manager of Airtricity, told the Joint Committee on communications, energy and natural resources. However, progress was urgently needed in creating the grid to deliver this energy to customers.
Mr Manning said its windfarm off Arklow was currently producing 25 megawatts of electricity and could be expanded to provide 500 MW, or more than 10 per cent of the total renewable energy target. However, there was no grid in place to handle this volume
He said offshore projects were "way down the list" of projects being assessed by the Commission for Energy Regulation and would not be considered for some years.
However if the situation regarding the grid was resolved the expansion of the Arklow windfarm was "ready to go".
Britain and Ireland are jointly looking at the development of an offshore grid for both islands, he said, but the UK was going ahead with the development of its own grid. One option would be for Ireland to develop its offshore energy and to feed this into the UK grid, at least initially.
Airtricity now has 100,000 electricity customers who have switched from the ESB following the deregulation of the market, the committee also heard. The ESB has almost 2 million customers and Bord Gáis 200,000.
Airtricity chief executive Kevin Greenhorn said the company was looking at the option of allowing customers to be billed and to pay their electricity bills via mobile phone.
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