Right of reply to Colm McCarthy – onshore wind

DEAR SIR:

In his opinion article recently, Colm McCarthy claimed once again that onshore wind is expensive, that the subsidies are not allocated in a competitive manner and that we already have enough fossil fuel plant to meet Ireland’s electricity demand. He is ill-informed and mistaken on all counts.

Colm’s piece again ignores Government commitments to transition to a low-carbon economy by 2050 by reducing our energy-related carbon emissions by 80-95% from 1990 levels. Bloomberg predicts that CO2 emissions will peak in 2026, and fall thereafter, as the world invests $5.3tn to build new wind and solar plant to replace fossil fuel plant. Whether we have surplus fossil fuel plants or not at this point is completely moot, and of no concern to Irish consumers as these will be phased out over the coming decades. Economists love to take a contrarian view, but is Colm seriously suggesting we join Syria and Nicaragua as the only countries in the world not to sign up to the Paris Climate Change Accord? Does he appreciate the very serious security of supply risk that Ireland faces if we continue to rely so heavily on fossil fuels? Ireland imports fossil fuels coming from countries with serious geopolitical problems. Our gas supply (once Corrib runs out in around four years’ time) is all delivered via a single pipeline from the UK. More and more we will turn to Europe for energy and agriculture policy.

Colm has also somehow missed the most fundamental change in a decade in how renewables are to be purchased and priced. The DCCAE has already confirmed its intention to move towards a competitive auction-based system for procuring future renewable electricity. The fixed tariff system was in fact closed to new projects in 2015.

This is not to say that previous tariff systems did not provide value for money for the electricity consumer in Ireland; the opposite is in fact the case. Research has found that “the impact of the cost of the subsidy (of windfarms) on consumers’ electricity bills was more than offset by the reduction in electricity prices (caused by wind generation displacing expensive fossil fuel plant)”.

Bloomberg’s New Energy Outlook predicts costs of onshore wind will fall by a further 47% by 2040. Colm has consistently failed to reference any study or research.

Onshore wind has delivered enormous savings to Irish consumers. SEAI says the use of renewable energy (primarily onshore wind) in the electricity system avoided €286m of imported fossil fuel cost in 2015 alone. We have the best wind resource in Europe. When combined with the new competitive auction system for renewables and the latest wind turbine technology, onshore wind is Ireland’s key to clean, renewable energy.