Ireland has enough wind-generated electricity on its national grid to power up to 1.3 million homes after passing a key development milestone, State agency Eirgrid said yesterday.
Eirgrid, which manages and operates the national grids in the Republic and the North, said there were 2,000 megawatts now installed on the system. This was enough to supply electricity to 1.3 million homes “depending on weather conditions”, operations manager Fintan Slye said.
The news comes as Minister for Energy and Natural Resources Pat Rabbitte announced this week that his department was opening Refit 2, a support scheme designed to boost investment in wind power.
Refit – renewable energy feed-in tariff – provides guaranteed minimum prices for the electricity produced by wind farms over a 15-year period.
The scheme will apply to projects built between January 1st, 2010 and December 31st, 2015.
Welcoming the Minister’s announcement, IWEA chief executive, Kenneth Matthews, said a report commissioned by the organisation from consultants, Deloitte, showed that the wind energy sector had the potential to create 10,760 jobs by 2020.
