This is a very good article on the renewable scene in Ireland from the Irish Independent newspaper
Renewable energy can supply 40 % of demand
By Peter Flanagan
Tuesday May 29 2012
IRELAND could get almost half of its energy from renewable sources and eventually become a net exporter of energy under plans revealed by the Government yesterday.
The Department of Energy’s ‘Strategy for Renewable Energy: 2012 — 2020’ claims Ireland can source 40pc of its energy output from renewables by the end of this decade and could eventually have an energy surplus, allowing us to export it to the UK and beyond.
“We have agreed the 40pc with the European Union but it is also a target we should embrace ourselves and aim to surpass if possible,” said Energy Minister Pat Rabbitte.
The report highlights five “strategic goals” for renewable energy, including increasing the amount of power sourced from wind, as well as a renewed emphasis on bio-energy, research and development, and an increase in the rate of renewables used by the public transport sector to 10pc by 2020.
The report also calls for an “intelligent, robust and cost efficient energy networks system”.
The plan notes 36 actions that should allow the Government to hit these goals.
Ireland uses about seven gigawatts of electricity a year. According to Mr Rabbitte, it may be possible to produce double that amount from wind, sea and solar energy.
“Given the scale of our wind resources, in the medium term we could be exporting wind energy on a scale that matches the total electricity consumption of the country,” he said.
“As the European Union moves to decarbonise its energy systems, there will be a real demand in Europe for carbon free electricity. Our coastal location gives us a real advantage in having natural resources of real scale and significance,” he added.
Energy in Demand - Sustainable Energy - Rod Janssen 
This is good to hear, but can the Irish economy really pull this off?
In today’s financial crisis, it isn’t obvious. Hopefully someone from Ireland will shed some light. But I know that Ireland is taking this very seriously. All policy is not grinding to a halt today. Fingers crossed.
Thanks, Rod. One of the limitations for exports is that the current under-water cables connecting Ireland to England (none to Scotland or France) are rather weak. Also, to take on a large amount of intermittent renewables (especially wind: I doubt that they will in the end generate much in the way of solar electricity) they are going to have to increase the number of flexible generating resources. One idea being trialed in Japan is to build pumped-hydro reservoirs near the sea and use seawater rather than freshwater.
The other thing they need to do is stop producing electricity from peat. The plants have a low thermal efficiency and as a consequence have high CO2 emissions. (I am not somebody, clearly, who puts much store in the argument that peat is “slowly renewable”. It is, but only if the peat bogs are not drained, and then only over a scale of millennia.)
Thanks Ron. You make some excellent points and it will be interesting to see what further reaction we get. On the peat issue, they have designated some areas as conservation areas but the peat farmers are rebelling. It is hard to change old ways. On under-water cables, I believe there are several countries that are confronting that issue. The UK is exploring it with Iceland and others.
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