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AFTER winning a decade-long battle for official acceptance, the dramatic reversal in the state's economic fortunes has placed the Irish wind industry back on trial, this time accused of promoting billions in unnecessary infrastructural developments, which will cripple the competitiveness of Irish industry.
Over the past 10 days, the sector has been rattled by a series of public attacks prompted by the release of an Irish Academy of Engineers (IAE) report which criticised the government's current energy policy.
The IAE report called for a temporary halt to the state's €30bn renewable energy investment strategy, which involves generating 40% of the country's electricity from renewables by 2020, until a full economic study was carried out.
Other elements of the government strategy include reinforcement work on the national grid and the building of an electricity interconnector with Britain to allow surplus wind energy to be exported.
The traction gained by the IAE's arguments has prompted fears in the energy industry that the investment strategy may suffer the fate of previous Irish infrastructural developments and be cut to the bone, with little regard for future needs.
In many cases, most notably with transport projects, this has forced the state to spend billions in the long-term on fixing capacity problems triggered by short-term penny pinching.
"We're potentially facing an M50 moment in electricity. If we had the foresight to build the M50 to the correct width originally, we would have saved massive expenditure on rebuilding it later. History should have taught us that it is better to build infrastructure for the future," said one industry figure.
The main arguments contained in the IAE report are indeed similar to those posed by opponents of previous infrastructural developments; that the strategy does not reflect current demand levels and will drive up the cost of doing business here.
"There has been a dramatic change in circumstances since the strategy was prepared," said Kieran O'Brien, chairman of the IAE's energy standing committee. "Electricity demand will fall by 10% this year due to the recession and we are unlikely to get back to past peaks until 2014. Despite this, the government's plans are still based on significant demand growth".
O'Brien said the actual level of investment needed was unclear because the state had engaged in a "warm feelings analysis" of its energy needs under the leadership of energy minister Eamon Ryan. "A criticism running through our report is that the state hasn't been doing its sums. Major techno-economic studies need to be conducted."
O'Brien said that while the IAE accepted that the state had to reduce its carbon emissions, the government hadn't properly examined alternatives to wind such as carbon capture and storage and nuclear energy.
He added that the state's arguments that renewables would lead to lower long-term electricity prices were based on high fossil fuel prices which may not emerge on a consistent basis.
"We're betting the Irish economy on the fact that oil prices will be over $150 a barrel. No sane commercial organisation would do that. If it fails, you would be destroyed. We need a policy which is robust against a range of oil prices, not just extremely high ones."
But the Irish Wind Energy Association (IWEA) argues that high fossil fuel prices are inevitable, particularly given the geopolitical situation in major oil and gas producing states such as Russia and Iran.
"There are already warning signs in the oil market, with prices at $70 per barrel, and we're not even out of the global recession yet," said the IWEA's chief operating officer Caitríona Diviney. "We believe the only hope for Ireland's energy price competitiveness in the long run is to build enough wind generation that we will be insulated from future fossil fuel price spikes".
Diviney admitted that, due to government subsidies, the cost of electricity generated from wind was currently higher than conventionally-generated power. But she said the reverse had been the case for the past three years and was likely to remain the case once oil prices recovered fully.
Professor John FitzGerald of the state's leading economic think-tank, the ESRI, also believes the state's strategy represents an excellent insurance policy against future oil price spikes.
"Our conclusions would be for high oil and gas prices, our mid-term forecasts show high wind penetration would benefit consumers come 2020," he said.
FitzGerald said the state should continue to execute its investment plans despite the economic downturn, arguing that the projects would pay for themselves in the long-term. He said it was particularly important that the interconnector with Britain went ahead as planned.
"If we don't build it, wind could prove very expensive for consumers as we could end up with too much wind energy at times, meaning that we may be forced to temporarily shut down conventional plants at great expense, to avoid waste. With the interconnector, we can export the excess energy and sell it abroad," he said.
The national grid operator, Eirgrid, also argues that delaying the investment projects would be unwise, particularly as some of the work is designed to catch up with past demand growth. Parts of the transmission system in Dublin are close to overload and Eirgrid is currently working on projects to prevent sporadic blackouts hitting the city from next year.
"This investment is needed so we can retain jobs and attract new ones in the future. Intel chairman Craig Barrett has stated that one of the reasons for his company's presence in Ireland is the quality of the electricity supply. It is critical for us to maintain this record to attract high-tech jobs in the future," said an Eirgrid spokesman.
He said the agency appreciated that economic circumstances and electricity demand patterns had changed since the investment strategy was drawn up but said it was important to stress that they were long-term developments.
"These projects take time to develop and some of the grid projects will take up to 16 years to complete so the expenditure will be stretched over time. We agree that these investments have to be carefully managed and so we are bringing forward projects which will have concrete benefits for the state."
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It is deeply disturbing that the Irish State is effectively lying to its citizens. No official publication has been issued on the true costs, the benefits and alternatives available of the country's renewable energy programme. What is worse is that in 2006 the Government Green Paper on Energy effectively lied to its citizens with regard to the alternatives available. The Government then went on to ignore the submission made to it by its engineering profession and do exactly what they recommended against.
The ESRI failed to inform Irish Citizens on the total unsuitability of Government policies with regard to the property market. So we were all experts on the property game as we are now on energy systems. Sums may be boring, such as on housing output, demand, debt ratio, etc. Even more boring are the design details of electricity generators, the costs of distribution, the reliability of the network, etc.
However, sums are important, we can see that now in the burst of the property bubble which the ESRI did not inform the Irish public about. What I see with the present policies in Ireland with regard to energy appals me. Irish politicians will once again ignore the submission to the Joint Oireachtas Committee of the Irish engineering profession as they did in 2006 and the submission I have also made : Ireland's Choice - EU Environmental Policy or Green Economy.
I would advise you to read them!