‘Tall order’ for Ireland to meet offshore wind targets

Seamus McCabe of Macquarie’s Green Investment Group says 2030 green deadline is tight

Ireland has a target to be generating 70pc of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2030. Photo: Gareth Fuller

John Mulligan Twitter Email

October 14 2021 02:30 AM

Ireland is facing a “tall order” to deploy 5GW of offshore wind energy by the Government’s targeted date of 2030, according to Seamus McCabe, vice president with Macquarie’s Green Investment Group (GIG).

The unit recently acquired the developer of the planned 400MW Sceirde Rocks windfarm off the Galway coast, marking its first investment in Ireland. It’s likely to cost in the region of €1bn to build.

Mr McCabe was speaking on Wednesday at the virtual Climate Finance Week conference, which was organised by Sustainable Finance Ireland.

Ireland has a target to be generating 70pc of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2030.

But the country is already facing an energy squeeze, with fears that the coming winter will stretch the electricity network to its limits.

The Commission for the Regulation of Utilities warned during the summer that at least 2GW of new gas-fired power plants also need to be built within the next few years to support renewable energy development.

Ireland is projected to have the potential for 40GW of offshore wind energy production, which could see the country eventually become a significant exporter of power, as well as helping it achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

“We’ve eight years to do different projects and that is a tall order,” Mr McCabe told Wednesday’s conference in relation to the offshore wind energy target for 2030.

“We need to move at pace to enable those projects to be delivered,” he warned.

But he said that building offshore windfarms off Ireland’s west coast presents a considerable opportunity.

Paul Saunders, senior investment director at the State’s Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), said that the agency is open to acting in concert with other sovereign wealth funds to boost the level of investment in renewable energy projects in Ireland.

He said that ISIF has made more than €300m in climate-related investments to date and that the agency wants to act as a catalyst for investment that might not otherwise be lured to the Irish market.

Mr Saunders said ISIF intends to invest €1bn in climate-related ventures over the next five years.

He said that offshore wind projects will attract a significant amount of that investment.

“We also need to think about the range of investments that are going to be required,” he said. “Not just the turbines, but the supporting grid, the port infrastructure, the companies doing the operation and maintenance – these are all potential areas of investment for ISIF.”

“There may be gaps in the capital structure of some of the bigger developments, where a friendly sovereign cum investment partner can help to crowd-in international capital and we definitely see a role there,” he added

ISIF is an investor in the Temporis Aurora Fund, having injected €50m into the vehicle. The €126m fund, established by Temporis Investment Management, is also backed by AIB and German renewables firm Encavis.

This week, Temporis announced the launch of Inis Offshore Wind, which plans to develop at least 1GW of offshore wind projects by 2030. Inis is headed by Vanessa O’Connell.

She said that while she’s optimistic for the development of offshore wind energy projects in Ireland, there are a number of challenges to overcome.

They include ensuring that government departments, An Bord Pleanála, Eirgrid and other relevant agencies have the necessary resources to help meet the offshore wind energy ambition.

“There currently is a risk that some of the early offshore wind projects will be built from ports outside of Ireland,” Ms O’Connell said.

“We shouldn’t let this happen. We need to work together to make the necessary strategic investments in our ports to enable the supply chain and the jobs to come to Ireland.”

Separately, Cork-based floating offshore wind company Simply Blue announced on Wednesday that it has created a joint venture with US-based TotalEnergies to target offshore wind energy opportunities in the United States.