RenewableUK has appointed Hugh McNeal as its new chief executive, who will take up his new post in April. He takes over from Maria McCaffery, who has headed the organisation since June 2006.

McNeal is currently director of change at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, where he is focussed on improving the department’s efficiency and delivering financial savings.

His other roles have included chief executive of the Office for Renewable Energy Deployment at DECC, and deputy director of Low Carbon Business at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

McNeal, the key player commented the announcement:

“It will be a privilege to represent an industry which is playing such a vital role in providing safe, secure power for our country’s homes and businesses, as well as tens of thousands of high quality jobs across the UK.”

Westar Energy has placed a turbine delivery order with Siemens for the 280MW Western Plains wind power plant in Ford county, in the state of Kansas, US.

Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed.

Located near Spearville, to around 100 miles west of Hutchinson, the wind farm will be equipped with 122 of Siemens SWT-2.3-108 wind turbines, and will be able to meet the power requirements of approximately 100,000 average households in the country.

Besides supplying the turbines, the German technology giant Siemens will be responsible for their installation support and services, that will include the Siemens’s advanced remote monitoring and diagnostics.

The firm is expected to start wind turbine installations for the project later this year, and commission those by early 2017.

To date, the firm has installed more than 5,000 wind turbines in the country, capable of producing clean power for more than 2.5 million US homes.

According to the Irish Wind Energy Association (IWEA) which has gotten its hands on preliminary figures from a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), Ireland will soon move up one place in the world wind energy usage rankings to third place overtaking Spain.

Despite all the news of Ireland’s bombardment with wind and rain in 2015, it turns out it was enough to see us rise to 3rd in the world rankings of countries who used wind energy to generate electricity.

Wind energy in the Republic has always been seen as our greatest hope in trying to achieve our target of 16pc of Ireland’s energy being generated by renewables by 2020 given, well, our abundance of wind.

According to the figures from the upcoming IEA report, 24pc of Ireland’s entire electricity usage was met by indigenous wind energy, with the rough weather in December seeing a record 39pc of Ireland’s demands being met by wind energy for that month. At its peak on 19 December last year, 2,037MW was generated providing enough energy to power roughly 1.3m homes nationwide.

In 2014, Ireland was ranked in fourth place behind Spain’s 20.4pc at just 18.3pc, but still quite far behind Denmark’s 39.1pc.

The IWEA, always looking on the bright side of bad weather, said it contributed to a 9.4pc decrease in the price of wholesale electricity in 2015 compared to the previous year.

Speaking of these early findings (with the report scheduled for release sometime in the coming weeks) the CEO of the IWEA, Kenneth Matthews said:

“Irish wind and renewable energy gives us the power to power ourselves and the opportunity to cut our 85pc foreign energy import dependency which costs us €15.6m every single day.”

Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly has just announced a proposed €650 million hydro-electric plant which will seek to create 400 construction jobs and 50 permanent jobs on a disused mining site in Silvermines North Tipperary.

The hydro electric power station project will be the second of its kind in the Republic, along with the ESB’sTurlough Hill (292MW) facility, and Ireland’s most efficient electricity generation plant with its 360 megawatts. It is also one of the largest ever private infrastructure spends in the county.

The plant is being developed by Irish company Siga Hydro, Irish construction company Roadbridge, Austrian construction and technology companies Strabag Group and Andritz Hydro, from the existing disused open-cast mining site where operations ceased in 1993. It will be capable of supplying 200,000 homes with power :

“The overall value of benefits flowing into the national economy will exceed €2.5 Billion,” said Kelly at the launch event in Nenagh, before adding the project would “transform the mining legacy here from an environmentally hazardous to a positive one”.

The Silvermines Hydro Electric Power Station will generate electricity during high demand periods as water from a higher elevation reservoir is released to a lower reservoir, flowing through giant turbines in the process. It is then pumped back up to the higher reservoir during low electricity demand periods.

The project begins with a detailed feasibility assessment and consultation programme with the local community, before moving to an 18 month to two year planning process later this year.

Siemens has won a contract from Blue Energy to supply 23 SWT-2.3-93 turbines at the 53MW Blackcraig Hill onshore wind farm in Dumfries and Galloway, in Scotland.

The contract also includes a 20-year service agreement for the project that is scheduled to be commissioned in the spring of 2017.

Blue Energy chief executive Christopher Dean commented the news :

“We are delighted to be working with Siemens again. Both the proven performance of the G2 platform and the specific characteristics of the site itself made the SWT-2.3-93 the clear choice for us.”

Siemens and Blue Energy have previously worked together on the 21MW Middlewick project on the Dengie peninsula in Essex completed in 2014.

RES has won a contract from Western Power Distribution (WPD) to build and support its first battery energy storage system alongside British Solar Renewables 1.5MW solar park at Copley Wood in Somerset.

The £1m project (€1.3m) is part of a WPD-led initiative to investigate the technical and commercial feasibility of battery energy storage combined within distributed generation installations in the UK.

The engineering, procurement and construction contract will see RES build a 300kVA/640kWh project that will demonstrate nine different applications of energy storage on the grid.

RES will also provide ongoing warranty support during the battery’s operation and use RESolve, its energy storage control and dispatch system, to provide 24/7 management of the battery’s operation.

The storages system will be supplied by BYD and will be fully self-contained.

It is being delivered through Ofgem’s Network Innovation Allowance, and is being run in conjunction with BSR and the National Solar Centre.

RES managing director for Western Europe Gordon MacDougall commented the news:

“This project marks an important milestone for RES, as we are bringing the energy storage expertise we’ve developed in North America to the UK for the very first time. Our experience of delivering almost 80MW of energy storage globally has given us the ability to provide proven and reliable energy storage solutions, and we are confident that this project will open the door for other opportunities in the UK.”

SSE and Coillte have completed a financing deal worth €176m for the 105MW second phase of the Galway Wind Park in the west of Ireland. The total 169MW project, located south-west of Oughterard, is set to be Ireland’s largest wind farm.

The JV pair have signed off on a deal with Spanish bank BBVA, Dutch outfit Rabobank and German company Nord LB on what is understood to be the largest-ever finance package for a single wind farm in Ireland.

The debt will stretch over 16 years including the construction phase. Each bank will provide a 33% stake of the finance including a €3m VAT facility and a €3m guarantee facility.

SSE director of renewables, Paul Cooley commented the event :

“Our investment with project partner Coillte at Galway Wind Park marks the most significant commitment yet that SSE has made in renewable generation here and reflects the exceptional quality of this Galway site for wind energy generation as well as the outstanding project partnership that we enjoy with Coillte.”

Coillte land solutions director and partner for the project, Mark Foley also said:

“This deal with SSE fits with our strategy to maximise the potential of each hectare we manage in a sustainable way. It is a clear example of how we can add significant economic value to our estate and secure significant recurring future income.”

Siemens is supplying 58 SWT-3.0-101 turbines on the full 169MW project. The 64MW phase one, owned and financed by SSE, is already in construction.

Construction on phase two will begin this month with the full project expected to be completed in Q3 2017, at which point it will be commissioned and will enter commercial operation.

The Irish wind industry has launched a publicity campaign to highlight its potential to replace costly fossil fuel imports.

Devised by advertising agency Rothco with the Irish Wind Energy Association (IWEA), the “Power To Power Ourselves” campaign says the country is in a “unique” position to decrease its “astonishing” 85% reliance on imported energy :

“Harnessing wind energy, along with other renewable resources, could end that reliance, restoring our energy independence and showing the world how to live without fossil fuels”, the campaign’s website says. But that’s not all :

“We’ve shown the world how a small country can be a leader on the global stage. And now we have the chance to do so again, but this opportunity has far reaching consequences for Ireland and the entire planet. There are few places on earth better located to harness the power of the wind. Our island’s unique position on the edge of the Atlantic might bring some inclement weather, but it surrounds us with a valuable natural resource”, also explains the website.

The campaign is support by a number of wind developers including ABO Wind, Bord na Mona, Coillte, ESB and Gaelectric with turbine suppliers Siemens, Enercon and Nordex also involved.

Vattenfall is set to invest around €5.5bn in wind energy through 2020, wind chief Gunnar Groebler told German media :

“This equals more or less the amount the company has invested in wind energy in the last 10 years”, he added.

The investment will help to double the capacity of Vattenfall’s on and offshore wind installations in the same period. Main markets will be Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK, and Germany.

However, Groebler did not name specific projects.

Vattenfall has started a sales process for its German coal division and hopes to finalise the process until next summer.

Atlantis and ScottishPower Renewables (UK) Limited (SPR) are teaming up to develop a joint portfolio of projects for the fast growing tidal sector, Atlantis announced yesterday (Tuesday).

Atlantis’s Scottish project development vehicle, Tidal Power Scotland Limited (TPSL), will acquire SPR’s portfolio of tidal projects in exchange for a 6% shareholding in TPSL for SPR. As a shareholder, SPR will have a representative on the TPSL board, ensuring that the enlarged portfolio can benefit from its experience in renewable energy development and operations, and demonstrating commitment to the future of tidal power in the UK.

The SPR tidal power portfolio consists of two sites, a 10MW project at the Sound of Islay in western Scotland and a 100MW development at the Ness of Duncansby at Scotland’s north eastern tip. The projects will sit alongside the flagship 398MW MeyGen project, which is 85% owned by TPSL.

The project assets include agreements for lease with The Crown Estate for both sites, and the Sound of Islay site also has a grid connection offer and construction consents from the Scottish Ministers. The Sound of Islay project has been awarded €20.7 million of grant funding from the European Commission’s NER300 fund by way of capital and revenue support. With consents, grid connection and grants secured, this project is the most advanced commercial scale project in the UK after MeyGen, and is expected to achieve financial close in 2016.

Following completion of the acquisition of Marine Current Turbines Limited from Siemens AG in an all share deal earlier this year, the Atlantis group has agreements for lease for two further Scottish tidal sites, at the Mull of Galloway in south-west Scotland and Brough Ness, to the north of the MeyGen and Ness of Duncansby sites in the Pentland Firth. Atlantis is in the process of adding these two projects, with a combined capacity of 130MW, to the TPSL portfolio.

Atlantis, through TPSL, is the driving force behind the growing tidal sector in the UK. TPSL has the largest tidal stream portfolio in the UK, which is at the forefront of this burgeoning industry. The benefits of the increased scale of development in the expanded portfolio are expected to extend to a stronger supply chain in Scotland and the UK as a whole, attracting inward investment and diversifying exposure to the traditional offshore sector.