Concerted effort required to add momentum to offshore wind

The hope was that Ireland’s next generation of offshore wind turbines would be roaring into life in the coming decade – but are the plans all coming to a juddering halt?

Earlier this year, the Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy published a report on challenges to the delivery of offshore renewable energy (ORE). The report asserted that the State will almost certainly miss its 2030 offshore wind target of 5GW of capacity, and highlighted the legal, organisational and technical barriers slowing the progress of the various projects in development.

Planning is a major concern – developers of the North Irish Sea Array project submitted a 10,000-page application in June 2024 but did not receive a request for further information until April 2025.

Ireland has multiple older, developer-led projects under the “first-come, first-served” system, initiated before the State shifted toward a plan-led Designated Maritime Area Plan (DMAP) approach. These are what Wind Energy Ireland terms “legacy projects” – the five Phase 1 offshore wind projects that are in development off Ireland’s east coast, with a planned capacity of 3.8GW.

Minister for Climate Darragh O’Brien recently admitted in response to a parliamentary question that planning decisions for all were “taking longer” than expected.

Justin Moran, director of external affairs with Wind Energy Ireland (WEI), says planning delays are a major concern. “I can’t emphasise enough how much hangs on planning decisions,” he says.

“For all the talk about offshore wind in Ireland, we still don’t have a project through the planning system which means, as far as the international supply chain is concerned, there’s limited value to engaging with the projects. Get one or two or three through the planning system and suddenly, for the first time, Ireland becomes a genuinely serious player in offshore wind.”

Noel Cunniffe, WEI chief executive, says: “For all of our projects, what is most critically important is the active engagement of well-resourced State agencies to provide them with the information and the feedback they need on their plans to enable them to put together the most robust planning application possible.

“One of the challenges we have seen with earlier offshore projects is that many State and prescribed agencies, when first meeting the project teams, simply didn’t have the experience nor the expertise to properly engage, leading to lengthy delays in the planning process.” Investing in these organisations to give them the resources and the tools they need is “critically important”, he adds.

Cunniffe notes the decision by the Taoiseach to establish the Offshore Wind Clearing House to focus on the delivery of offshore renewable energy has already had an impact in tackling “long-standing roadblocks” in planning and grid policy.

Prof Jimmy Murphy is a senior lecturer in offshore renewable energy at the School of Engineering at University College Cork, as well as a co-principal investigator in the ORE Technology group at MaREI, the Research Ireland Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine.

‘While we welcomed the 2030s targets as setting a path and vision for offshore wind in Ireland, we believe they are unlikely to be fully achieved’

—  Angela Larkin, Ocean Winds

“It has been accepted for a while now that Ireland will not make the 2030 5GW target, but it is expected that by then maybe we will have more than 5GW in development and perhaps 1GW-plus in production,” he says.

Murphy acknowledges the delays that have hindered Ireland’s first foray into offshore wind in more than two decades. Passing the Maritime Area Planning Act and then establishing MARA (Maritime Area Regulatory Authority) took more time than anticipated, he says.

Yet Murphy also notes that planning is simply the first hurdle for projects of this magnitude. “Planning is what’s holding things up at the moment, but there may be other issues later,” he warns. “Once planning is approved, developers must start lining up the ships, turbines and other components needed to build the wind farm. There’s a lot of worldwide competition for turbine manufacturers and components, so that could cause further delays, because the equipment, vessels and infrastructure may not be available. Even our ports aren’t ready.”

International offshore wind energy specialist firm Ocean Winds has partnered with BnM to identify and develop offshore wind energy opportunities around the coast of Ireland.

“While we welcomed the 2030s targets as setting a path and vision for offshore wind in Ireland, we believe they are unlikely to be fully achieved,” says Angela Larkin, general manager and project director of Ocean Winds. “However, we remain hopeful that the Phase 1 projects will continue to progress and move into construction in the early 2030s.”

The main challenge, she believes, is ensuring projects can navigate the path from policy ambition to delivery. “In our view, the current sequencing of auctions does not sufficiently de-risk projects for developers to support deliverability and ultimately Irish energy security.”

Under the current framework, Larkin explains, contract for difference prices are fixed several years before procurement and financial close, a practice she says exposes projects to significant uncertainty over that period. “Recent events have shown how external factors, including interest rates, supply chain constraints, and construction and operating costs, can change materially in a relatively short time.”

Maintaining confidence in Ireland as a development opportunity will depend on the agenda and timelines for DMAP being delivered as planned, Larkin adds. “To accelerate progress, we believe the initial focus should be on bottom-fixed sites that can be delivered at the lowest cost to the consumer, while working closely with EirGrid to ensure grid capacity is available as these projects move forward.”

Ireland has big plans for offshore wind energy – a recent stakeholder meeting held in Galway in late September outlined all the potential areas identified as part of the national DMAP process, some 22 sites covering almost 25,000km².

But Cunniffe is unequivocal when he says momentum must be maintained when it comes to offshore renewable energy. “We need a concerted and joined-up effort right across the policy system to enable these first projects to be built and energised in the early 2030s.”