Ireland First Offshore Wind Auction: 3.1 GW Awarded in Four Projects

Ireland has awarded four offshore wind energy projects of capacity nearing 3,100 Megawatt (3.1GW) in its first offshore wind auction conducted under Renewable Electricity Support Scheme ‘ORESS 1.’

The 1,300 MW Codling Wind Park will be owned and developed by a joint venture of Fred. Olsen Seawind and EDF Renewables. RWE has said it will develop the 824 MW Dublin Array wind project. The 500 MW North Irish Sea Array (NISA) was awarded to Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) and Statkraft.

The fourth project – the 450 MW Sceirde Rocks offshore wind farm – was awarded to Fuinneamh Sceirde Teoranta (FST). FST is a joint venture between Corio Generation and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

The Ministry for the Environment, Climate, and Communications (Ireland) said that the wind energy auction results had surpassed expectations both in terms of the total volume of renewable energy procured and the low price at which it was secured. 

“The hugely competitive price secured — at an average of €86.05/MWh — is one of the lowest prices paid by an emerging offshore wind market in the world. For comparison, the average wholesale electricity price in Ireland over the past 12 months was in excess of €200/MWh. It is expected that this price will save Irish electricity consumers hundreds of millions of euros per year,” said the Ministry.

The Ministry mentioned that the over 3 GW of capacity procured from four offshore wind projects would deliver over 12TWh of renewable electricity per year.

“This is the largest volume of renewable energy Ireland has ever procured at auction — equivalent to over a third of Ireland’s entire electricity consumption this year and over a quarter of projected 2030 electricity demand. It is also enough to power over 2.5 million Irish homes with clean electricity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 1 million tonnes in 2030,” the Ministry note said.

The offshore wind auction under ORESS 1 was meant for six offshore wind projects. This was part of the Ireland Government’s Phase 1 of the offshore wind programme. The entire program is being coordinated across the government by the Offshore Wind Delivery Taskforce.

Last year, Ireland auctioned 80 new wind and solar projects amounting to 1.9 GW under Renewable Energy Support Scheme (RESS 2) auctions.