Statkraft acquires 320MW of Irish solar projects

This, added to the company’s existing portfolio of 1.25GW of onshore wind and 500MW of offshore wind in Ireland alone, sees Statkraft very positively positioned to play its part in helping this country deliver on targets set out in the Government’s Climate Action Plan published in June.

The solar projects in question are at an advanced stage of development and several of the projects will participate in the upcoming Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) auctions. They are being purchased from solar developer, JBM Solar Limited.

The company also reiterated its commitment to a capital spend of €1.5billion in the Irish renewable energy generation sector.

“We believe that Ireland will need contributions from all forms of renewable energy to meet 2030 binding targets of reaching 70 per cent green energy. The acquisition of this 320MW of solar energy further diversifies our own portfolio and continues our upward growth trajectory,” said Statkraft Ireland Managing Director, Kevin O’Donovan.

“Each MW of these developments will be necessary if we are going to be successful in tackling climate change. Work carried out to date has ensured that the Irish electricity grid system is operating successfully with renewable energy levels of up to 65 per cent at any given time which proves that we are not that very far away from having a Grid system which can be run almost exclusively on renewable energy," he added.

Statkraft’s ambition is to become a major wind and solar developer globally, aiming at 2,000 MW of solar and 6,000 MW of wind power capacity by 2025.