Sir, – John McManus is right to describe the designation of offshore wind as critical infrastructure as a “no-brainer”(“Why is Jack Chambers so coy about designating offshore wind as critical infrastructure?”, Business, April 29th).
But the deeper issue is not simply planning delay, it is that Ireland is still thinking too small about the scale of its offshore wind opportunity.
The current pipeline of about 4.7GW is being treated as a major national achievement. In reality, it is only an early tranche of what Ireland’s waters can support. Even conservative assessments suggest 20GW plus is achievable within the next two decades, with significantly higher potential once floating offshore wind becomes commercially mature.
Floating technology is particularly important because it removes one of the most persistent constraints on expansion, visual impact. Much of Ireland’s future wind resource lies far offshore in the Atlantic, where development would be largely invisible from land.
READ MORE
At that scale, offshore wind ceases to be just a domestic electricity solution. It becomes an industrial platform. Countries that moved early in wind energy, such as Denmark, built globally significant supply chains and expertise. Ireland risks limiting itself to energy import substitution when it could be positioning itself as an exporter of clean power and a location for energy intensive industry.
Designation as critical infrastructure would help accelerate delivery and reduce unnecessary friction in the system. But the bigger gap is strategic, Ireland is still calibrating offshore wind against today’s demand rather than tomorrow’s opportunity.
The question is not whether Ireland can build 4GW or 10GW. It is whether it is prepared to plan for a system several times larger, with the infrastructure and ambition that scale requires. – Yours, etc,
STEPHEN KEEGAN,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.
