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For Oral Answer on : 27/04/2023
Question Number(s): 109 Question Reference(s): 19861/23
Department: Environment, Climate and Communications
Asked by: David Stanton T.D.
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QUESTION
To ask the Minister for the Environment; Climate and Communications how his Department is supporting and encouraging the development of floating offshore wind power generation; his future plans for the development of floating offshore wind power generation nationally; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
REPLY
The 2020 Programme for Government committed to a target of 5GW of installed offshore wind capacity in Ireland’s maritime area by 2030 and made a commitment to develop at least 30GW floating wind beyond 2030.
In addition, in 2022, the Government agreed to target the delivery of an additional 2GW of offshore wind for the production of green hydrogen in order to create the necessary environment to develop a floating energy and hydrogen industry.
The Government is delivering our climate and energy ambitions for offshore wind energy through a number of simultaneous phases. The first and second of these phases focus on 2030 deliverability while development is also underway for a post-2030 future framework for offshore wind which is expected to feature floating offshore wind. A key building block of this policy, the spatial strategy known as the draft Offshore Renewable Energy Development Plan II (OREDPII) completed consultation stage last week. The OREDP II sets out how we will go about identifying the best locations for renewable energy technologies. This includes the potential for floating wind energy in our deeper waters. The maritime area is a shared space and so identification of these areas will be carried out in consultation with all maritime stakeholders.
Other elements of the future framework policy are also underway, including a hydrogen policy and a new interconnection policy. These elements and others will be brought together to form a draft future framework policy which will be published for consultation by my Department by the end of this year.