Taoiseach Enda Kenny today addressed the Energy Ireland Offshore Renewable Energy Conference in Ballina, County Mayo.
The Taoiseach said:
I believe it is imperative that we harness our strengths to grab the opportunities that our natural resources have granted us.Over the past year I have met some fantastic innovative small Irish businesses based up and down the Atlantic seaboard who are developing new technologies to better harness renewable energy. From forestry to wave energy, the possibilities are endless...
As a Government we have committed to ensure that our ocean wealth will be utilised to the fullest extent possible.
We have long neglected our ocean resource, and underestimated its potential.
In July the Government published the first integrated marine plan for Ireland, Harnessing our Ocean Wealth.
Its purpose is clear: to put the days of underachievement in the marine area behind us and to ensure that our ocean wealth is a key component of our economic recovery and sustainable growth into the future.
The plan identifies two targets: to double the value of Ireland’s ocean wealth to 2.4% of GDP by 2030 and increase the turnover from our ocean economy to exceed €6.4bn by 2020.
It recognises the potential of Ireland’s marine resources to contribute to renewable energy generation.
The Taoiseach spoke of the potential of Ireland's wave and wind energy resources...
Because of our proximity to the Atlantic, the West has one of the strongest wind and wave resources in Europe.
A wind turbine on a good site in the West of Ireland can generate on a yearly basis almost twice the amount of electricity it would yield if it were built in Northern Germany.
The collective challenge of Government, Local Authorities and local communities is how best to get clean energy generated in the West to high energy demand locations in other parts of the country.
To acknowledge these challenges we published an Energy Infrastructure Policy Statement to highlight the need to develop and renew our energy infrastructure in order to meet economic, employment and social policy goals.
We need to be able to build the necessary infrastructure to strengthen electricity supplies in the regions and attract more investment here in the West.
The Taoiseach highlighted the export potential of Ireland's energy resources...
We have long known that Ireland has renewable energy resources that are considerably greater than our own needs.
We are moving from today’s island-based, stand-alone energy system to a more interconnected and integrated single European energy market.
We now have a real opportunity to go beyond providing for our own needs and to develop our abundant natural resources to become a renewable electricity exporter of scale.
In December last the European Union published an Energy 2050 roadmap which sets out a number of different scenarios for developing a clean energy sector over the coming decades.
It is clear from this that there will be a significant increase required in renewable energy deployment in Europe.
Increased interconnection to the UK offers us the opportunity to access a much larger market in future and the West is well placed to benefit from this opportunity.
As part of the export potential, Ireland has a real opportunity to develop large-scale projects to drive a new renewable export industry.
Read the full speech here.