What’s stopping the government from making the most of its wind energy?

02 September 2026

Originally published in the Business Post.

By Noel Cunniffe, CEO of Wind Energy Ireland.

Ireland spends billions of euro every year importing the gas and oil we depend on to meet our energy needs. Every disruption to global energy markets reminds us of the cost of that dependence. Families see it in their bills. Businesses and farmers see it in their budgets.

Yet Ireland has one of Europe’s strongest wind resources. In 2025, wind provided around a third of our electricity and reduced spending on imported gas by an estimated €1.2 billion. On the windiest days, wholesale electricity prices can be almost half what they are when fossil fuels dominate the system.

So, what is stopping us doing much more?

Increasingly, the answer is not a lack of ambition, investment or renewable energy projects. It is whether the State has the people and capacity to turn those advantages into infrastructure. That is one of the energy questions Budget 2027 must address.

Across planning, environmental assessment, regulation and offshore development, public servants are being asked to deliver one of the most complex infrastructure transformations in the history of the State. Yet many of the organisations involved remain constrained by shortages of specialist expertise.

Wind Energy Ireland is therefore proposing a €25 million Energy Independence Recruitment Fund to help recruit and train hundreds of specialists across the public sector. In the context of the investment Ireland must make in its energy system, the sum is modest.

The potential return is significant: faster decisions, stronger regulation and greater certainty for the infrastructure on which our future energy security depends.

The consequences of under-capacity are already visible. Government deserves credit for supporting unprecedented investment in the electricity grid after years in which the scale of the challenge was underestimated.

But so far this year, across the island of Ireland, 15 per cent of the electricity that our wind farms could have produced – along with 13 per cent from solar – was lost because the system could not accommodate it.

That is not simply an engineering problem. There is also a basic economic inefficiency in generating renewable power that the system cannot always move, store or use. Ireland gets less value from infrastructure that has already been built, while remaining more exposed to volatile international energy markets.

In effect, we are constraining domestic renewable generation at one moment and paying to import fossil fuels at another.

Strengthening the grid, expanding electricity storage and enabling more homes, businesses and transport to switch from fossil fuels to electricity would allow Ireland to make much greater use of the energy we already produce.

It would reduce dependence on imported oil and gas and help insulate households and businesses from future price shocks.

The electricity grid is not some obscure technical issue. It is core economic infrastructure. Ireland’s ability to turn our renewable-energy potential into lower costs, greater energy security and a lasting competitive advantage will depend on whether the electricity system is capable of carrying that ambition.

Planning is another part of the same story. Onshore wind remains our most affordable source of new electricity generation and invests tens of millions of euro each year in rural communities.

Yet projects can spend years awaiting decisions. At the end of June, 48 wind energy projects, with a combined capacity equivalent to about half of our existing installed fleet, were awaiting decisions from An Coimisiún Pleanála.

Projects are going into the planning system faster than decisions can be made, Whatever view people take of individual developments, communities and developers are best served by a planning system that provides timely and robust decisions.

Offshore wind offers an even larger opportunity which could provide secure electricity at home while supporting new industries, supply chains and employment in coastal communities. Recent progress on the south coast and the establishment of the Taoiseach’s Offshore Wind Clearing House are encouraging.

But ports, consenting bodies and the wider public sector will need sustained investment if offshore potential is to become actual clean power.

All of this comes back to people. Engineers, planners, technicians, electricians, seafarers and environmental specialists will build and operate the next generation of Irish wind, solar, storage, grid and electrification projects.

Competition for those skills is fierce and it is international. Ireland needs to train more people, create clearer career pathways and ensure the public bodies charged with delivering the transition can compete for expertise.

This is about much more than meeting climate targets. It is about cutting our exposure to volatile fuel prices, keeping more money in the Irish economy and building a more secure energy system.

Ireland has the resource. Increasingly, the question is whether the State is able to make the most of the opportunity. Budget 2027 should invest not only in our energy infrastructure, but in the people and institutions needed to deliver it.