Energia has opened a new €18 million, 10.2 megawatt (MW) extension to the Drumloughhill Wind Farm in County Donegal.
Peter Baillie, managing director of Energia Renewables, comments: “The company has consistently been one of the largest investors in the renewable sector and invested a significant €200 million in the last two years in over 100MW of wholly owned wind farm developments and has supported third party wind generator investments of €600 million in over 370MW of wind farms throughout Ireland.”
The extension was officially opened by Dinny McGinley TD, Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The 10.2 megawatt (MW) wind farm is owned by Energia and the ‘off take’ electricity is sold to business customers around Ireland.
Tom Gillen, chief operating officer at Energia, says: “Energia is proud to be one of Ireland’s leading low-carbon-intensity energy suppliers, with over 300MW of operational wind farms, and a further 540MW in development. This is set to increase to over 840MW of Ireland’s renewable power, or around 25% of the Irish renewable market, by 2013. This puts us at the top of list of those helping Ireland reach the targets of sourcing 40% of our energy from renewable sources by 2020.”
Energia has a 28% market share of the Irish business electricity and gas market supplying the energy needs of over 65,000 business customers. In addition to renewable assets, the company also operates a 750MW gas fired power station in north Dublin, where the Energia has invested €500 million.
Energia recently signed a preliminary off-take agreement to purchase the electricity generated from the pioneering Wave Energy Converter being operated by US firm Ocean Energy Systems (OES) off Belmullet, County Mayo.