Winds of change ease €8 billion Greenwire project forward

The creation of a new export industry offers a genuine once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Irish economy. Element Power’s Greenwire project can bring real benefits for Midland communities.

16 July 2012 will go down in Irish history as the day when the first steps were taken to establish a new export industry from Ireland as Element Power became the first Irish provider to sign supply contracts with National Grid UK.

Ireland has one of the best wind resources in Europe, far more than is required to meet the country’s renewable energy targets. This country will comfortably meet its renewable energy targets by 2020 and will by then be at the technical limit manageable on the Irish Grid. The natural next step for a country with an excess natural resource is to export the resource creating a new export industry and employment.

Greenwire can be the single biggest infrastructural project ever to be developed in Ireland. Approximately 750 turbines clustered in 40 wind farms across five counties – Kildare, Laois, Meath, Offaly and Westmeath – will be used to generate 3,000 megawatts of energy which will be cabled directly to the UK independently of the Irish Grid. At zero cost to the Irish taxpayer, in time, the project can be as significant a contributor to the Irish exchequer as the beef industry.

The direct and indirect benefits of such a project are colossal. The company conservatively estimates that 10,000 jobs will be created during a three-year construction phase. A further 3,000 medium-term jobs can be sustained in servicing and maintaining all aspects of the wind farms and the related underground and undersea cabling.

Rate and rental payments to local authorities and landowners will contribute €50 million to local economies each year. In counties Westmeath, Offaly and Laois this would amount to at least 40 per cent of their present income from rates. This comes at a time when many local authorities are severely cash-strapped and struggling to collect the rates which are actually due to them.

Greenwire will have a 25-year life span and all cabling for this pioneering project will be underground. It has been welcomed by various business groups in the Midlands as a potential catalyst for economic recovery while the Construction Industry Federation has said Greenwire can be a ‘life-saving’ opportunity for its members.

UK energy targets

The Greenwire proposal is very timely in light of developments in the UK energy market. Our British neighbours had been energy independent since the discovery of North Sea oil and gas in the 1970s. However, those reserves are nearing depletion and the UK is once again facing a reliance on imported energy to meet its demand.

The UK is also facing the prospect of decommissioning its ageing nuclear and coal power stations. These currently supply some 20 per cent of the UK’s overall electricity requirement.

In light of these challenges, the UK Government is currently engaged in identifying where it will source its energy into the future. While it is presently developing three times as much onshore wind as Ireland, this alone will not be enough.

Imports are the obvious option and this is driving interest in grid connection with neighbouring countries. Allied to this, the UK has made a commitment that 15 per cent of its energy consumption will be from renewable sources by the year 2020. That represents a requirement for the UK to source another 18,000 megawatts of renewable energy to meet its targets.

The British Government is focused on identifying the most cost-effective means of achieving that target. Although Britain has significant wind resources of its own, especially in Scotland, it does not have enough to meet its target in a cost-effective manner in the short term and is considering co-operation with other European countries to achieve it.

This is where Britain’s energy challenge should be seen as Ireland’s opportunity. We have an abundance of wind energy and it should be harnessed for the good of both countries. The geographic proximity of the Irish Midlands to Wales, where Element Power has secured two connection points to UK National Grid, renders the project viable. As with our agriculture sector where we produce multiples of what we can consume and export to the UK, the same can apply with a free and surplus natural resource with dividends accruing to Ireland Inc.

Progress to date

Element Power has been meeting a wide range of statutory and non-statutory stakeholders since 2011 and has made huge strides in bringing Greenwire from an aspiration to a project which will soon be at a stage to apply for planning approval.

Given the scale of the project, the legislation indicates that a planning application will be submitted directly to An Bord Pleanála. State forestry agency Coillte has signed an option agreement with Element Power, meaning that a number of its sites in the Midlands are available for wind farm consideration.

Element Power has signed sufficient option agreements to deliver the project. Extensive preparatory and feasibility studies have been carried out on hundreds of potential sites across the five Midland counties in order to draw up a list of final locations for the project.

The Irish Government’s Strategy for Renewable Energy 2012-2020 sets out the export of renewable energy as one of five strategic goals.

Behind the scenes, a sizeable amount of regulatory and political progress has been achieved since the publication of the UK Energy Bill in November 2012 which paves the way for the trading of energy between Ireland and the UK. The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Energy Minister Pat Rabbitte and his British counterpart Ed Davey in January 2013 saw another piece of the jigsaw fitted into place.

Interconnectivity and technology

Greenwire fits in with current EU policy to develop a Europe-wide electricity grid.

An electricity highway connecting the electricity networks of countries across Europe will allow surplus power in one country to flow to another where the electricity is needed.

Allowing power to follow transnational supply and demand enhances the efficiency and lowers the cost of energy. Trans-national power sharing will also help the expansion of renewable energy.

Electricity from stand-alone wind farms cannot be stored. A transnational grid makes it more likely that a market will be found for renewable energy, no matter when or where it is produced.

Ultimately, a Europe-wide grid could allow northern Europe’s abundant wind and wave power to share markets with solar projects from southern Europe.

In the case of Greenwire, wind farms will feed into a central node in the Midlands. Underground HVDC cables will feed from the central node to the east coast with subsea HVDC cables then cabling the electricity to Wales. All route selections will be made to minimise impacts on people and the environment with optimal cable routes identified mainly along public roads.

The turbines proposed for the Greenwire project will be 3.5-4 megawatt with a hub height of 120 metres. These new and improved turbines will catch more wind than traditional and less efficient models resulting in a need for fewer machines to generate the 3,000 megawatts required.

This means less visual impact, fewer access roads and underground cable runs. These larger machines have rotors which turn more slowly and which are less intrusive than small, rapidly spinning blades. Improvements in technology and aerodynamic design mean that the new turbines are also quieter.

Community benefits

If granted planning permission for Greenwire, Element Power intends to establish a Community Benefit Programme to benefit the wider community where the wind farms are located. It would be established prior to construction and would operate for the duration of the wind farms’ commercial life-time.

The company has met with numerous voluntary community groups, development associations, local enterprise bodies and sporting clubs and societies across the five counties where the Greenwire project is proposed. These meetings have taken place as part of a series of public information days in addition to an extensive consultation programme which has been under way since 2011. The feedback garnered to date has been extremely positive on many levels.

The Community Benefit Programme will consist of a Local Community Fund which would distribute financing annually to deserving projects within the communities where the wind farms are located. The Irish Wind Energy Association (IWEA) recommends that developers establish a community fund of €1,000 per megawatt but Element Power intends to make a higher contribution.

There would also be three additional funds related to educational opportunities, energy projects and local enterprise. The Educational Fund would help to finance educational initiatives for students in communities where wind farms are located. The near Neighbour Fund would finance practical energy projects for individual households adjacent to the wind farms while the local Enterprise Fund would foster local enterprise and employment creation through the support of small local business. The company intends to contribute a total of €250 million into the Midlands by way of community benefit over the life-time of Greenwire.

This €250 million added to €50 million in rates and rent each year would see Element Power contribute a minimum contribution of €1.5 billion to the local economy over the life-time of Greenwire.

While the cliché ‘once-in-a-life-time opportunity’ is sometimes used casually, Greenwire does actually represent such a prospect. It is innovative, it’s exciting and it can establish Ireland at the forefront of the cleantech industry. Let us seize the moment and develop this new clean export industry!

For further information, contact Sean Perry on +353 (0)1 662 0345 or email: sean@keating.ie

About Element Power

Element Power is a global renewable energy developer that develops, acquires, builds, owns and operates a portfolio of wind and solar power generation facilities worldwide. The company is active in 16 countries, with more than 9,280 megawatts of projects in development and a number of operating assets already sold.

With offices in Tullamore and Cork, Element Power Ireland conducts the Group’s regional operations and presence here and is directly responsible for the roll-out of Greenwire. In addition to Greenwire, Element Power Ireland has a growing development portfolio which it manages across the counties of Waterford, Donegal and Cork. At the helm since its establishment in 2010 is Tim Cowhig, supported by his former SWS colleagues Peter Harte and Kevin O’Donovan. Together they successfully developed and later sold SWS’s Wind Energy Division in 2009, then one of the largest wind generating entities in Ireland, to Bord Gáis for €500 million.