Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 16 November 2023
9. Deputy David Stanton asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications to outline as part of proposals for a floating offshore wind and green H2 policy for Ireland; his Department's plans, if any, to announce suitable designated maritime area plans for the south and west coasts to plan and attract necessary industry investment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50230/23]
View answerI ask the Minister to outline, as part of proposals for a floating offshore wind and green hydrogen policy for Ireland, his Department's plans, if any, to announce suitable designated maritime area plans for the south and west coasts to plan and attract necessary industry investment; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
To capitalise on the considerable resource potential of our marine area, Government has adopted a phased approach to offshore renewable energy development in Ireland, with the overarching objective of achieving 5 GW of installed offshore wind capacity by 2030 and a net-zero economy by 2050. Phase one is intended to deliver the maximum competitively procured offshore wind capacity at the earliest feasible deployment stage, with the six most advanced offshore wind projects in Ireland having participated in our first competitive offshore wind auction earlier this year, known as ORESS 1. Phase two aims to procure the remainder of the 5 GW capacity target for 2030 through further competitive ORESS auctions. In line with the Maritime Area Planning Act 2021, all future offshore wind developments will be located within designated maritime area plans, DMAPs, established by Government and approved by the Oireachtas.
The final phase of offshore wind deployment is referred to as the future framework. This will establish an evidence-based pathway for developments beyond 2030. Floating offshore wind technology is expected to make an increasingly important contribution towards achieving Ireland’s long-term renewable energy and climate objectives, including with regard to potential export opportunities, and will enable developments to take place off our western and south-western coasts. A future framework policy is currently under development and will be consulted upon in the coming months before publication next spring, contingent on Government approval. This policy will provide an evidence-based framework for the subsequent establishment of future DMAPs for floating offshore wind.
I thank the Minister for his response. I am aware of the south coast offshore renewable energy DMAP proposal published last July. There was a public consultation and a lot of work has gone into it. I commend the Minister on it. Can the Minister outline the timeline for the next DMAPs? When does he envisage that the finalised decisions will be made and published, and his Department sufficiently resourced to deliver on any such timeline?
I do not have the exact detail on the timeline, but I expect it in the coming months. Very shortly, we will set out the designated area and that will be followed by a further auction next year and the year after.
Next year will be the next auction. It is to design them on a rolling, regular basis so that it gives certainty to industry and that we meet the 5 GW targets. What I should have mentioned in my opening response also is a further target of some 2 GW which we are looking to convert from power to energy, without being completely specific in terms of what that exact mechanism might be, to look for industry to come back with innovative proposals, be they for hydrogen, ammonia, energy storage, clever ways of managing curtailment or other energy systems management effected through the use of offshore wind in that light. The next phase has to get us back up to that 5 GW. The four projects in the Irish Sea, if memory serves me, make roughly 4 GW of power. We need to fulfil our immediate target but we do not stop there. We are going towards 30 GW and, in my mind, 70 GW if we really think big and long term, going out into the Atlantic and southern waters. It is the path to that scale of development that we need to get right so we have certainty and predictability. Investment will come when we are not stop-start and when it is just part of a regular, routine process of expansion.
I agree with what the Minister has said with regard to the importance of having certainty to attract investment, and plans as well. Would the Minister agree with me that without our west coast DMAP, for instance, next year, Shannon Foynes Port Company and others are unlikely to secure funding and planning towards port infrastructure in time for the offshore wind industry local content and climate targets? Can the Minister give me any indication as to when he expects to publish the finalised DMAPs for the south coast?
Linked to that, as is included in the original question, what are the Minister's views and plans with respect to floating offshore wind? The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but what I have seen involves fixed-bottom structures rather than floating structures. What are his and the Department's thoughts with respect to floating offshore wind? Could he tell me what the situation is with respect to Cork-Bantry? There is no equivalent of the Shannon Estuary economic task force, SEET, report there to pinpoint where investment in DMAPs is needed. Could he talk about that situation as well, or if he does not have the information, could he revert to me later?
Could I ask the Minister by way of a supplementary question the extent to which studies have been undertaken into joint wind and solar energy production centres? This would be with a view to bringing solar energy, insofar as is possible, to a level ensuring that wind energy is near continuous in times of calmness. Is that being studied at the moment? Has it been advanced to a stage where we can quantify exactly what is likely to come from the solar energy farms and how soon? How much evaluation is being done at the moment?
I might answer that question first. It relates to an earlier question about grid connections and the crew looking at our connections policy. There is real potential for us to maximise the existing grid where we do have both solar and wind. They tend not to come at the same time. Windy days are typically cloudier, sunny days less so. It makes real sense to integrate wind and solar, as the Deputy suggested, and optimise the use of the grid.
Going back to Deputy Stanton's question, part of that predictable, regular process was the creation of the new Maritime Area Planning Act, the establishment of MARA and the resourcing of all those agencies. Included in that is that we are on track with the publication last summer of our first southern DMAP, about 900 MW located very much to optimise grid. It could be delivered in two 450 MW chunks or one single 900 MW chunk. We will see what the market delivers on that. There was a nine-week consultation on it which finished just last month. It will be published in Q1 next year and we expect it to be concluded and approved by Government shortly after that. We are on track for the southern waters. That should give real certainty for the second auction results. There are a lot of businesses and developers interested in the area. The biggest constraint is access to environmental data, understanding the subsea, sea floor and below that. As we go towards more regular DMAP systems, the advantage will be that we can provide a lot of the environmental data and de-risk the projects in that respect. That is where we are going to help companies to make investment decisions knowing they are not going to be tripped up on environmental constraint.
