An Bord Pleanála granted planning permission for just a quarter of the volume of wind energy projects needed to keep Ireland on track for Government climate targets in the first half of the year.
That’s according to Wind Energy Ireland, which said between January and June, four windfarms with a combined capacity of 228MW got the go-ahead.
However, the industry organisation claims that in order to reach the target of 9,000MW of on onshore wind by 2030, the planning board would have needed to have given the green light to 860MW of capacity since the start of 2024.
It said that 30 projects with a total combined capacity of 1,766MW had not had a decision made on them by the middle of the year.
While eight windfarms with an estimated capacity of 459MW were also rejected by the board over the half year period.
“Irish people want clean, affordable and secure energy,” said Noel Cunniffe, CEO of Wind Energy Ireland.
“That is what wind farms deliver but we will need more of them to provide the power required by Irish families, businesses and communities. Before we can build them, we need to first get them through the planning system.”
“Unfortunately, today’s report shows that we are only getting around a quarter of the projects we need to match our energy targets through An Bord Pleanála, and many of the projects recently approved by the Board have already been challenged in the courts.”
Increased resources have been given to An Bord Pleanála recently as part of Government reforms of the planning system.
Earlier this year it apologised again for ongoing delays and a lengthy backlog in determining cases, caused by a significant turnover of personnel in recent times.
However, Wind Energy Ireland said there are signs that the speed of decision-making is improving, with the time for determinations falling from 106 to 80 for applications to the Board and 79 to 74 for appeals.
“While these timelines are still far longer than they need to be, we acknowledge that in some cases there has been a delay on the industry side in responding to requests from the Board for further information, and the average timelines are pulled up by a small number of outlier cases,” said Mr Cunniffe.
But Wind Energy Ireland says a taskforce established by the Government to speed up the delivery of onshore renewable energy must prioritise fixing the planning system to speed up decision-making further.
“We need to build onshore wind farms, offshore, new solar farms, battery projects and reinforce the electricity grid in just a few short years,” said Mr Cunniffe.
“Our planning system is simply not fit for purpose to achieve this.”
Mr Cunniffe also pointed a finger at some local authorities, who he claimed were changing the zoning of land to prevent wind farms from being built.
