ABSTRACT
The renewable energy market support in Ireland prior to 1992 (Ó Gallachóir 2000) was essentially a form of feed-in tariff. This was utilized by small-scale hydropower producers who built electricity-generating plants, and consequently negotiated a tariff in order to trade in electricity with the then-monopoly electricity supplier, ESB. Deployment was rather slow but continuous, and these projects can be classed as being relatively small (typically < 1 MW). This limited scale resulted in a total of approximately 11 MW of installed hydro capacity, some of which was also supported with European Union (EU) funding for innovative energy technologies (the Energy Demonstration and THERMIE programmes). In addition to this, there funding was also available for renewable energy research and development projects in the period prior to 1992 (1976-1988 [International Energy Agency 2004]), which was the fi rst form of support provided for wind energy. A competition was launched in 1990 for grant support from the EU VALOREN programme (Council Regulation [EEC] No. 3301/86, of 27 October 1986) to construct the fi rst wind farm in Ireland. The successful 6.5-MW Bellacorrick wind farm was commissioned in 1992 and comprises 20 Nordtank 300-kW turbines and one 450-kW turbine. This growing interest in renewable energy led to an announcement in 1993 (Ó Gallachóir 2001) on the Alternative Energy Requirement, which was offi - cially launched a year later. This marked the fi rst renewable energy targets for Ireland, setting a goal 55 MW to be achieved by the end of 1997 (30 MW of which was to be wind power). This period also saw the establishment of a competitive tendering market support mechanism toward supporting initiatives in meeting renewables targets. Early attempts to build wind farms, in particular, raised a number of issues facing this new industry in Ireland, pointing to the need for a clearer policy framework. As a result, the period of 1993-2000 also saw the publication of the fi rst renewable energy policy document, Renewable Energy-Strategy for the Future (Department of Transport, Energy and Communications 1996). Here, the
new targets for renewable energy were more ambitious (100 MW to be achieved by 2000) and, in addition to this target, the strategy also put in place a series of measures to address the barriers that might impede the delivery of these innovative and proactive targets.
