Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Sparks

Ireland Just Set a New Wind Energy Record

A whopping 70% of the island’s electricity was generated by wind turbines on Wednesday.

Offshore wind.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The “green” puns pretty much write themselves. On Wednesday, Ireland set an all-time high for wind output on the Irish grid at 4,629 megawatts, Green Collective reports.

By midnight Thursday, wind had accounted for a smidgen over 70% of Ireland’s total electricity demands for the day.

In 2022, Ireland ranked third in the world, alongside Uruguay, when it came to its share of electricity generated by wind power: 33%. Only perennial wind leader Denmark, which generated a whopping 55% of its electricity from gusty weather last year, and surging Lithuania (38%), edged it out.

It’s not just — forgive me — luck, either. According to the COP28 Global Offshore Wind Update, a new report from industry consultancy ERM published yesterday, only two countries out of the 19 that have 2030 offshore wind targets are expected to hit them: Ireland being one, and Poland being the other, Recharge writes. Most of its current wind capacity, however, is from onshore wind farms.

Ireland’s wind generation information is easily accessible from EirGrid, making the region a favorite case study among energy nerds — including the creators of the charming Irish Energy Bot (which later evolved into Green Collective). Earlier this year, the account also celebrated wind generation exceeding “all-island electricity demand” in Ireland for the first time, during overnight hours and Storm Agnes-related gusts. According to EuroNews, such trends have translated into significant savings:

[As of September, the] latest figures mean that in total, Irish wind farms provided 32% of the country’s power over the first eight months of 2023. Electricity prices on days with the most wind power dropped by an average of 5% to €88.34 [$95] per megawatt-hour.

On days when Ireland relied almost entirely on fossil fuels, that cost rose to €123.07 [$132] per megawatt-hour.

With numbers like that, who needs a crummy old pot of gold?

Blue

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Sparks

Major Renewables Nonprofit Cuts a Third of Staff After Trump Slashes Funding

The lost federal grants represent about half the organization’s budget.

The DOE wrecking ball.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Interstate Renewable Energy Council, a decades-old nonprofit that provides technical expertise to cities across the country building out renewable clean energy projects, issued a dramatic plea for private donations in order to stay afloat after it says federal funding was suddenly slashed by the Trump administration.

IREC’s executive director Chris Nichols said in an email to all of the organization’s supporters that it has “already been forced to lay off many of our high-performing staff members” after millions of federal dollars to three of its programs were eliminated in the Trump administration’s shutdown-related funding cuts last week. Nichols said the administration nixed the funding simply because the nonprofit’s corporation was registered in New York, and without regard for IREC’s work with countless cities and towns in Republican-led states. (Look no further than this map of local governments who receive the program’s zero-cost solar siting policy assistance to see just how politically diverse the recipients are.)

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Sparks

Esmeralda 7 Solar Project Has Been Canceled, BLM Says

It would have delivered a gargantuan 6.2 gigawatts of power.

Donald Trump, Doug Burgum, and solar panels.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Library of Congress

The Bureau of Land Management says the largest solar project in Nevada has been canceled amidst the Trump administration’s federal permitting freeze.

Esmeralda 7 was supposed to produce a gargantuan 6.2 gigawatts of power – equal to nearly all the power supplied to southern Nevada by the state’s primary public utility. It would do so with a sprawling web of solar panels and batteries across the western Nevada desert. Backed by NextEra Energy, Invenergy, ConnectGen and other renewables developers, the project was moving forward at a relatively smooth pace under the Biden administration, albeit with significant concerns raised by environmentalists about its impacts on wildlife and fauna. And Esmeralda 7 even received a rare procedural win in the early days of the Trump administration when the Bureau of Land Management released the draft environmental impact statement for the project.

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Sparks

Trump Just Suffered His First Loss on Offshore Wind

A judge has lifted the administration’s stop-work order against Revolution Wind.

Donald Trump and wind turbines.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

A federal court has lifted the Trump administration’s order to halt construction on the Revolution Wind farm off the coast of New England. The decision marks the renewables industry’s first major legal victory against a federal war on offshore wind.

The Interior Department ordered Orsted — the Danish company developing Revolution Wind — to halt construction of Revolution Wind on August 22, asserting in a one-page letter that it was “seeking to address concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States and prevention of interference with reasonable uses of the exclusive economic zone, the high seas, and the territorial seas.”

Keep reading...Show less
Blue