Statkraft Ireland: Powering ahead with green energy projects
Statkraft is a leader in Ireland’s onshore wind energy sector. Today, there are nearly 400 wind farms across the island, a vital contributor to the nation’s renewable energy generation.
Renewable energy is a term we hear bandied about every day of the week. We know it’s important. According to the United Nations, cheap electricity from renewable sources could provide 65% of the world's total electricity supply by 2030. More, it could decarbonise 90% of the power sector by 2050, massively cutting carbon emissions and helping to mitigate climate change.
As results go, these are massive. So massive, they’re hard to fathom. Sometimes to get a clearer picture, you have to go to the source.
Statkraft is Europe's largest generator of renewable energy. In October of this year, it celebrated five years in Ireland. Being the Norwegian stated-owned company’s Project Delivery VP for northern Europe, Conor Calnan is as good a source as you can get.
Asked why renewable energy is so important, he replies: “I believe very strongly that it is fundamental to human existence.”
What he says is entirely fathomable and can’t be denied. “Everything that happens depends on energy,” he continues. “But the problem is that conventional energy — whether coal, oil, natural gas or whatever — generates and emits greenhouse gases. These emissions contribute to climate change which impacts on and degrades the environment in many ways.”
It’s reassuring to know that much work is being done by Statkraft and others to protect the planet and all that’s on it from climate change.
Since 2018, when Statkraft acquired the Irish and UK wind development businesses of the Element Power Group, the number of employees in Ireland has more than tripled to nearly 130.
In that same period, Statkraft invested approximately €450 million here, with the result that its Irish business is now one of the largest renewable energy developers in this country. It currently has over 600 MW of projects in construction and has more than 4 GW of pipeline in onshore, offshore, solar, battery and grid services projects.
Corkonian Conor Calnan is among the biggest players in this phenomenal ongoing success story. In his capacity as VP Project Delivery Northern Europe, the Rosscarbery native spends his working days doing what he can to secure a better future for all of us. If that sounds like a big task, it is. But he, with the help of his team, is managing fine.
He feels good about the work he and his Statkraft colleagues are doing.
Describing the organisation’s approach to renewable energy as ‘very holistic’, he continues: “We’re in the business of building wind and solar, but we’re also taking the wider view. Looking at system stability in the grid and building infrastructures to support that.
“From a wind point of view, Statkraft has built three projects coming to 85 MWs in the last number of years,” he says. “In construction, as we speak, we have about 110 MW. So, we are moving along well. Also, we have a future pipeline of around 1.5 GWs.”
Onshore wind has been key to the country’s decarbonisation journey since the early 1990s, when the first wind farm was built, he explains. Today, there are nearly 400 wind farms across the island, and onshore windfarms are still the primary workhorses from the renewable energy generation point of view.
The numbers speak for themselves. According to Wind Energy Ireland, Irish wind farms provided 32% of the island’s electricity over the first eight months of this year.
The benefits of offshore wind are also on the horizon, Calnan adds. Statkraft was one of four companies to secure contracts in May, in the country’s first State offshore wind auction for its North Irish Sea Array (NISA) project, which is earmarked for the coastline off counties Dublin, Meath, and Louth.
“We were delighted to secure 500 MW for NISA,” says Calnan. “It’s a very exciting time to be involved in offshore, especially when you think about the potential for Ireland — not just for our own energy security, but also when you consider the possibility of the country eventually becoming a net exporter of energy.”
And surprising as it might seem, Ireland could become a global leader in solar power. “We have about 500 MWs constructed and waiting for final commissioning,” Calnan says of solar. “Statkraft plans to double that in the next five years.”
Those solar projects include Ireland’s largest solar farm in Co. Meath, where construction recently finished. At 200 MWp (a measure of the maximum potential output), it has the capacity to power the equivalent of 40,000 homes.
It’s safe then to conclude then that Statkraft is investing a lot of money and building a lot of projects.
Calnan also shares that Statkraft was the first company in Ireland to build the first grid-scale BESS (Battery Energy Storage System) here. “This was an 11MW battery project,” he says. “It was built back in 2020 in an innovative way, in that it was co-located beside one of our windfarms. It wasn’t the last one. In April 2021, we finished another 26MW BESS project.
“We have a future pipeline of these projects, and we are currently building another BESS project, a 20-megawatt four-hour battery project, co-located with our 50MW windfarm at Cushaling, in County Offaly.”
On the importance of grid services, he says: “Renewable projects are at times, delivered quicker than the required grid reinforcements which can affect the grid operation.
"Renewable energy sources are intermittent and variable as they depend on when the wind is blowing, and the sun is shining. That means that their output depends on natural resources that are not always predictable.”
Calnan explains that ‘the idea behind grid services’ is that you build an infrastructure and distribute that throughout the grid. “Sensibly located, these projects can ease congestion and provide the critical services and ensure the stability of the grid,” he says. “By doing this, money is saved, and emissions significantly reduced. It also facilitates the further penetration of renewables on to the system, making the system more robust.”
He talks then about synchronous condensers — devices that generate or absorb reactive power to help stabilise voltage and frequency on the grid power. Statkraft has already built two in the UK and has plans to build some in Ireland, Calnan says.
While asserting that Ireland has been ‘a great beneficiary’ of Statkraft’s investment in renewables around the world, Calnan references the abundance of their projects being built here. On his responsibility for Statkraft’s northern Europe market, he says Ireland has seen ‘the most action’ in terms of construction.
While Calnan’s workplace spans wide across the planet, he and his wife Emma and their sons are Cork based. When he talks with love and pride of his wife and their two sons, I imagine they must be proud that he dedicates his days to making our climate change-impacted world a safer place going forward.
“I try to explain to them what Statkraft is doing to make the world a better place,” he replies. “One in which we can survive going forward.
“I say to my kids that Statkraft is a very responsible employer. One that’s very much focused on people. One that has a primary goal of building renewables, to renew the way the world is powered.
“I tell them that at Statkraft we are doing something very positive in terms of trying to deal with climate change and the problems the world is facing. Because Statkraft invests significant money in renewable energy, the outcome is that we are safeguarding our future. The more renewable energy we have, the fewer greenhouse gases we emit and the better the world will be.”
