This article is from page 17 of the 2012-01-10 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 17 JPG
EIRGRID have admitted that a number of renewable energy projects that will “realistically never see the light of day” have been offered a connection to the national grid while other live development, such as the West Clare Renewable Energy Project in Mount Callan, will have to wait for as much as a decade to be given the green light.
EirGrid’s Transmission Access Planning Manager, Simon Grimes, was invited to address last night‘s meeting of Clare County Council and admitted that some projects could face a prolonged wait to be granted a connection.
Miltown Malbay councillor Michael Hillery questioned the EirGrid spokesperson about the reasons for delaying viable projects which have already been granted planning permission.
“We are under the impression that it could take between five or ten years for connection to come for the project in Mount Callan. Between Moneypoint to Dublin we have one of the biggest power-lines in the country and I don’t see why thhis cannot be used to facilitate the con nection in Mount Callan,” he said.
According to Mr Grimes, EirGrid have used the length of time that a application has been made and not whether the projects has received planing permission of is financially viable as the main criteria for agreeing to grid connections.
“The Commission for Energy Regulation ultimately decide who gets connected but they do consult with EirGrid and the ESB. Currently they do decided on connections without taking planning permission into account but my feeling is that this will probably change and,” said Mr Grimes.
“There are a lot of projects that have connection offers that will never see the light of day because of planning permission. At the same time there are other projects who have planning permission but no not a grid connection.
“There are projects that do have a grid offer but do not have planning permission – that is a fact. Some developers try and get the grid connection first – some took to get the planning first. I do think there will be a preference given to projects that have planning permission in the future.”
County Manager, Tom Coughlan, said that given the delays in the connections to the grid it is unlikely that Clare will be able to reach the targets set out in the County Development Plan.
“We have a wind energy strategy which has been developed by ourselves and that means we want to have 515 units developed by 2017. If it is going to take a decade for them to get connected it will be extremely difficult for us to reach the targets which have been set.”