Statkraft Ireland secured contracts for over 330 MW of renewable power including two wind projects (57 MW) and two solar projects (276 MWp), in Ireland’s first competitive renewable energy auction under the Government’s new Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS-1). Statkraft’s allocated projects include the 34 MW Cloghan and 24 MW Taghart wind farms, as well as the 198 MW Gallanstown, and 78 MW Blundeltown solar plants.
The company intends to achieve financial closures and begin the construction phase over the next 12 months, so as to have the entire 330 MW capacity operational during 2022. This will require an estimated €200 million investment. Statkraft plans to increase its global portfolio of wind power assets to 6,000 MW and solar power assets to 2,000 MW by 2025, which will include projects in the UK as well as Ireland.
EirGrid ran the RESS-1 auction on July 28, 2020. 108 projects submitted an offer price for this auction, and 82 of them have been provisionally successful. This includes 63 solar energy projects and 19 wind energy projects. RESS-1 is the first such scheme by the Irish Government and is part of the national plan for increasing the share of renewable energy in the electricity mix to 70 per cent by 2030.