The Irish Infrastructure Fund and Viridian-owned Energia have jointly opened Northern Ireland’s newest wind farms at Killeter, County Tyrone. The wind farms on Crighshane and Church Hill will generate 50.6 megawatts (MW). This represents a 12% increase in Northern Ireland’s total operating wind farm capacity to 448MW.
The wind farms, which represent a £60 million investment, are majority owned by the Irish Infrastructure Fund established by Irish Life Investment Managers, and managed by AMP Capital. They were developed and operated by Energia Renewables. The finance was made possible by Rabobank of Netherlands and NordDeutsche Landesbank from Germany. The electricity generated is being sold to business customers throughoutIrelandby Energia.
Peter Baillie, Managing Director of Energia Renewables, comments: “The company has consistently been one of the largest investors in the renewable sector. We have invested Eur200 million in the last two years in over 100MW of wind farm developments and we are also supporting third party wind generator investments of Eur600 million in more than 450MW of wind farms throughout Ireland through long-term off-take agreements.”
Ian Thom, Chief Executive of Viridian Group, says: “Energia is proud to be one of Ireland’s leading low-carbon-intensity energy suppliers, contracting with over 550MW of operational wind farms, and a further 290MW in development. This totals 840MW of contracted renewable power, representing around 25% of the Irish renewable market, by 2013, putting us at the top of the list of those helpingIrelandreach the targets of sourcing 40% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.”
Energia has approximately 28% share of the Irish business electricity market supplying the energy needs of over 60,000 business customers. In addition to renewable assets, the company also operates 747MW of gas fired power stations in north Dublin. Energia is a member of the Viridian Group and has offices in Belfast, Omagh, Dublin, Galway and Cork.
CAPTION:
Ian Thom (second right), CEO of Viridian Group, marks the start of production at Crighshane windfarm in west Tyrone with Peter Baillie, MD of Eneria Renewables (far right), Mark Sandys, investment manager at AMP (far left), and Johnny Hirgan, head of Synidcated Porperty at Irish Life Investment Managers.