Welcome to IEA Wind Member Country Activities for Ireland
While 2013 was a noteworthy year for several aspects of wind energy deployment and a number of significant wind projects were connected to the grid, annual deployment remained below the average level required to achieve national 2020 renewable electricity targets. There was however, an increased uptake of grid connection offers to meet the offer acceptance deadlines for the Group Processing Scheme Gate 3. The year was also notable for the emergence of a concerted anti-wind energy movement in response to several proposed GW-scale, land-based wind energy developments.
Good wind conditions resulted in wind energy output increasing to 4.5TWh or 16.3% of demand in 2013, an increase of 12.5% over 2012 levels.
The UK and Irish governments signed a Memorandum of Understanding and continued negotiations to put in place arrangements for electricity exports direct to the UK from wind energy projects in Ireland as defined in the cooperation mechanisms in EU Directive 2009/28/EC.