Offshore grids: The Irish view

Ireland has some of the most favourable wind conditions in the whole of Europe. Wind production, in the mainland as well as offshore, is expected to grow rapidly during the coming years, as evidenced by the fact that some 6000 MW of wind generation is currently awaiting connection to the grid onshore. Given the massive potential for the exploitation of renewable energy resources off the coast of Ireland, i.e. some thousands of MW [1], as well as first requests of connections offshore, it seemed reasonable to develop a study to investigate how to facilitate the connection of this type of generation which is the best topology and which the most viable and cost effective technology. Following a cooperation agreement between EIRGRID and ERSE, a study has been performed by using a Transmission Expansion Planning (TEP) methodology developed by ERSE [2] to evaluate the best network expansion plan aiming at transferring in the Irish Transmission System (ITS), the potential amount of wind energy to be produced offshore in the Irish Sea.