The Irish government has announced its support for the construction of an additional 235 MWs of ‘green’ electricity generating plants.
In his announcement, Noel Dempsey, the minister for communications, marine and natural resources, said most of the new capacity would come from onshore wind projects. There will also be contracts for two offshore wind demonstration projects and three biomass combined heat and power projects. Other technologies include landfill gas and anaerobic digestion plants.
The confirmed capacities include:
– Onshore wind energy (over 5MW) 177.1MW
– Onshore wind energy (under 5MW) 57MW
– Biomass (landfill gas) 3.273MW
– Biomass anaerobic digestion 0.795MW
The minister said the benefits included secure, eco-friendly electricity for 200,000 homes; a reduction of over 600,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions; reduced dependency on fossil fuels by more than 1.6 million barrels of oil every year; and improved national trade balance by over
