Wind industry responds to Government’s revenue cap

Wind Energy Ireland, which represents Ireland’s on and offshore wind industry has responded to the announcement today that the Government will be setting a revenue cap of €120 per MWh from 1 December to June 2023.

Noel Cunniffe, CEO of Wind Energy Ireland, said: “Electricity prices are high because of our over-dependence on imported fossil fuels. It is the high price of gas which is driving up electricity prices. The more wind energy on the system the lower the price of power.

“Our members know that Irish families and businesses are suffering because of high gas prices so we have never opposed the idea of a revenue cap but we had hoped that the cap would be set closer to the €180 figure proposed by the EU as it is important that Ireland is not seen as an outlier.

“We need to attract billions of euro of investment in the next 5-10 years to build the onshore and offshore wind farms that will end our dependency on fossil fuel gas which is what is causing this crisis. Anything that make it more difficult, or more expensive, to attract that investment is going to hurt Irish consumers.”

High prices

Mr Cunniffe also addressed  suggestions that all wind farm generators have benefited from unusually high prices.

Mr Cunniffe continued: “The overwhelming majority of wind farms in Ireland are in a scheme called REFIT. Under the terms of that scheme they cannot sell their own electricity. It’s really important for people to understand this. Most wind farms cannot sell their own power.

“In REFIT they must have a contract with a licensed energy supplier and it is that supplier which gets to sell the power the wind farm produces.

“The wind farm is only entitled to the REFIT payment of around €70-75 and if prices are higher than this, depending on their contract with the supplier, the wind farm may get some, or in many cases none, of the additional revenue from higher prices.”

Role of wind energy

When wind is on the system it displaces expensive imported gas and pushes down power prices. Last month the price of electricity on the windiest days was €67.28, half that of the monthly average of €136.27.

Irish wind and solar farms will also pay back more than €490 million to Irish electricity consumers over the next 12 months when the PSO Levy will turn negative. This will save every single Irish family €89 on their annual electricity bill and businesses more than €300.