The South Dublin County Council notes under 'The Role of the Development Plan' that "The county should aspire to becoming as low a carbon county as possible and make every effort to increase energy efficiency and unlock renewable energy potential. Therefore, there is a recognised need to build on previous County Development Plan energy and climate action policies". We would like to highlight the role that wind energy can play in every County Councils attempts to reach aspirations such as this. We put forward a regional approach for the spatial planning of wind in Ireland.
Ireland’s 2020 energy target of 40% renewable electricity was a key driver in the development of wind power over the last decade. Ireland has over 250 operational wind farms, which represents an investment of over €7 billion, regularly powering 65% of Ireland’s electricity needs. The wind energy industry also supports 4,400 jobs and annually pays more than €30 million in commercial rates to local authorities. We are a country with enormous renewable energy resources and are world leaders at incorporating onshore wind into the national grid.
Wind energy currently provides almost 33 per cent of Ireland’s electricity, which is the highest share of electricity being provided by onshore wind in Europe, and this is expected to rise as we decarbonise our electricity system[1]. In 2018 wind energy avoided 3.1 million tonnes of CO2 and cut €432 million off our fuel import bill[2] demonstrating the huge contribution that onshore wind is making to climate action.
Wind energy decarbonises our electricity supply, cuts our import bill and drives down wholesale electricity prices.
To achieve this, Ireland has built over 250 onshore wind farms, mostly since 2003, with a combined capacity of approximately 4,200 MW and over 2,500 wind turbines. Even though these wind farms are supplying Ireland with the highest share of onshore wind in any EU electricity system, the resource in Ireland is so large that Ireland’s turbine density is relatively low by other EU standards.
In order to reach our Climate Action Plan targets IWEA believes it is now necessary to provide for the spatial planning of wind energy and electricitytransmission infrastructure on a regional basis, rather than at the Local Authority level as has been the case to-date.
To deliver the goal of 4.2GW of new wind energy capacity on-shore by 2030, will require a sufficient quantum of land to accommodate many multiples of 4.2GW to be classified as suitable for wind energy. This multiple is required to allow for the natural attrition rate of the wind energy development process, where every site or area that has theoretical potential, cannot convert that theoretical potential into actual potential. This is illustrated in the graphic opposite, taken from the SEAI Methodology for Local Authority Renewable Energy Strategies.
The theoretical wind resource is reduced for many reasons. Even where a site is considered suitable for a wind energy development in a wind energy strategy, landowners may not be agreeable to accommodating a project on their lands. If landowners are agreeable, site-specific environmental constraints such as bird activity, peat depth/stability or a high concentration of neighbouring properties might rule a site out. If no such constraints exist, a project’s planning application could still be refused permission, or if granted, overturned on judicial review. If granted permission, a project may not be able to secure an economically viable grid connection, or be able to find a route to market for its electricity that make the construction of the project a commercially viable proposition. These are just a few examples of the hurdles a project must clear to convert theoretical potential to actual, delivered capacity. To deliver 4.2GW of new onshore wind by 2030, is likely to require a quantum of land sufficient to accommodate 15-20GW of land to be identified as suitable for wind energy.
Regional Allocation of Climate Action Plan Targets
If a sufficient quantum of land to accommodate 15-20GW of new wind energy has to be identified to ensure 4.2GW is actually installed by 2030, this target should be divided out between the three Regional Assembly areas. If, for example, the land required to theoretically deliver 18GW were divided evenly between the three Regional Assembly areas, each areas’ Renewable Energy Strategy would have to identify lands capable of accommodating 6GW of new wind energy. To deliver 4.2 GW by 2030, each area would only have to see 1.4GW of new wind farms installed, but 6GW of land would have to be identified as potentially suitable to allow for the attrition rate of the normal wind energy development process.
By assessing landscape sensitivity and capacity across each Regional Assembly area, it will be possible to identify lands on the lower end of the landscape sensitivity scale across each region that can accommodate the necessary GWs of new wind. As part of the preparation of each Regional Renewable Energy Strategy, a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) will be required. A “Landscape Sensitivity and Landscape Capacity Assessment”, tasked with identifying regional landscape sensitivity and regional landscape capacity, could easily be made part of the SEA brief, to ensure the least sensitivity landscape areas are identified. Allocating a clear target of 6GW per region, requires the areas of least landscape sensitivity with the greatest landscape capacity to be identified to ensure an average of 1.4GW of new wind energy can actually be delivered in each region by 2030, which is the only way of ensuring the 4.2GW overall national target is also achieved.
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/wind-generation-ireland-2019-martin-howley/
[2] https://www.seai.ie/publications/Energy-in-Ireland-2019-.pdf