asked the Minister for Energy if he will use Clare Island and Inisturk Island in Clew Bay, County Mayo, as pilot areas for generating electricity by windmills.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Wind Power Generation.
33.
Mr. Gallagher
The selection of specific sites for the generation of power from wind is being made with a view to ascertaining the potential in this regard on a national basis. Demonstration projects require unique features to ensure the best chances of success and with this in mind a list of criteria for selection of the island site was drawn up. Inis Siar best met these criteria. The Deputy will appreciate that the primary objective of the demonstration project is to ascertain whether a technical and economic basis exists for schemes to provide electricity from wind generation for other islands in due course but the question of selecting further sites must obviously await the outcome of the initial project.
Could the Minister indicate whether, if the Inis Siar experiment is successful, the islands mentioned in Deputy Gallagher's question would be reasonably high on the priority list for an extension of the scheme?
I think the answer to that would be yes. The only reason I hesitate about it is that we would give very serious consideration to all normally inhabited islands off the coast if the experiment turned out to be successful.
What criteria are intended to be applied elsewhere for selection of further sites? Were the same criteria applied to Inis Siar? Is it regarded by some test or other as the best possible site to begin with and is there a list of such sites along the west coast or elsewhere?
There were criteria set out for the selection of the test site and Inis Siar complied with those criteria better than any other site. But they are only related to the test site and do not apply to other sites that might be considered if this is successful.
I hope I am right in assuming an implication in one of the Minister's replies that he would not regard Inismhicileáin island as a normally inhabited island. What kind of time scale has the Minister in mind for the construction and evaluation of the Inis Siar project?
In regard to the various tests that I announced at the same time as the island project there were other propositions in mind as well. I said that I hoped to have them all in operation within a period of 18 months, so that applies to Inis Siar as far as being in operation is concerned. Possibly it would be in operation earlier than that but I would hope that that would be the outside time limit for any of them. The question of when they will be evaluated is one that I cannot answer at the moment.