We Need Both Onshore and Offshore Wind Farms

Blog: Most of us want clean electricity at low cost, at low environmental impact, with low or no visual impact, available always and everywhere. As is often the case in life, we have to make choices and prioritise from our list of wants, writes Yvonne O'Brien.

We are living in a climate emergency. Carbon emissions are rising and so are the bills for Irish families and businesses.

Wind energy is part of the solution.

Most of us want clean electricity at low cost, at low environmental impact, with low or no visual impact, available always and everywhere.  As is often the case in life, we have to make choices and prioritise from our list of wants.

Last year Ireland’s wind farms provided more than a third of the country’s electricity. Every year they save more than twice as much in carbon emissions as every other renewable energy technology combined.

Irish wind farms protect consumers every day by pushing expensive gas generators off the system and reducing our dependency on imported fossil fuels.

In January, for example, the price of electricity on the wholesale market on the windiest days was 32 per cent cheaper than on those days when we had to rely almost solely on gas.

Clean, Irish energy powers our hospitals, charges mobile phones, cooks dinners, supports Irish business and one in every three times you boil your kettle, the electricity to do so is generated by an onshore wind farm.

WE CAN DO MORE

By 2030, 80% of Ireland’s electricity will be generated from renewable energy and onshore wind will be the largest contributor.

We need both onshore and offshore wind farms.

But we are ambitious too for the development of offshore wind.  If we are to reduce our carbon emissions – as now required in law – and to respond to the climate emergency we need to develop around 5,000 MW or approximately 7 to 10 offshore wind farms by the end of 2030. 

Make no mistake, we need to develop both onshore and offshore.  If we only build at sea we cannot deliver the reductions in our carbon emissions that we need to achieve and we prolong our dependence on the imported fossil fuels that are driving the energy crisis.

CHOICES

The Climate Action Plan belongs to the Irish people - not just to the people who sit round the cabinet table.  It belongs to all of us who want to continue to live in a hospitable climate and environment on this planet. 

In the Climate Action Plan and in each of our County Development Plans we democratically make choices that will define the kind of world our children and grandchildren will live in. Ireland is fortunate to have a vast wind resource. That means we can choose to make our electricity largely from wind which is a sustainable source of energy with minimal impact on nature and people. 

Until now relatively few of us have lived near our power stations.  Generating more of our electricity from wind energy means more of us will need to become used to seeing the turbines that generate it.  For some of us that’s welcome but for others that means change and adjustment. 

When we face change there are bound to be queries and concerns that people will want and need to talk out.  Wind farm developers want to engage in discussing your concerns and their plans, they want to answer your questions.  When the representative of a wind farm knocks on your door have that chat, get involved in the process.  Ask every question that comes to your mind.  Ask to be pointed to reputable third party sources and make the consultation process meaningful for you.

Wind farm projects have informative websites which will provide you with ways to get in touch with their project team.  Your input can bring about adjustments to plans.

Our planning process is set out in planning law by our lawmakers in the Dáil and like every other planning applicant, wind farm developers follow the planning process.  Our planning system is currently under review. It is widely agreed to be in need of updating and wind farm developers have called for a robust and timely planning system.

In some cases, misleading and exaggerated claims about the impacts of wind farms on health, property values, the environment and other areas are repeated without sound or indeed any reference points.  These claims may be at variance with information from reliable sources such as our Department of Health, the WHO, and reputable universities and institutes.

Governments do not have the wherewithal or expertise to be the builders of wind farms.  Both well-known Irish and multinational energy companies come together in commercial joint ventures to build wind farms.  Why? Because they each bring their own expertise to the development of Irish wind farms which generate Irish electricity for use in your home and mine. 

Energy is a vital component in almost everything in our world.  As we have learned over the last 18 months, when the cost of energy goes up, the price of almost everything shoots up. 

Ireland can make clean, abundant energy from the wind.  Having abundant and affordable energy is a source security and opportunity for us all.

This article was originally published in The Kilkenny People, March 2023.