A further €60 million investment in solar energy farms has been announced in Ireland.
The newly announced renewable energy investment will provide a significant boost in improving the volume of solar energy produced in the country. It has been decided that new solar energy ‘farms’ are to be built in counties Clare and Kerry over the coming years. Once the farms are completed, County Clare will find itself in the enviable position of being the country’s leading producer in the field of solar energy. A solar farm nearly 12 hectares in size is due to be set up there, and will then be connected to the national grid which will then have the capacity to provide enough electricity to fully service nearly 1,000 Irish homes all year ‘round.
The company tasked with building these new solar farms, Terra Solar, has selected a number of sites with similar traits, with a view to build even more solar farms. When the company’s planned works are fully complete, it is predicted that somewhere in the region of 5,000 homes will be fully serviced with a renewable and sustainable source of electricity. Terra Solar are expected to officially reveal their plans for further solar farm builds in the Republic of Ireland in the coming weeks.
Not only does this new investment come with the possibility of a greater volume of solar energy to be produced and made available to the nation’s people, but it also makes it probable that many other interesting ventures and possibilities will open up in the not too distant future. The availability of this abundance of solar energy could help Ireland be viewed as an attractive place from a business perspective. Many international companies may be tempted to make use of this affordable energy and would want to set up their operations in Ireland. A lot of multinational corporations would also like to look into different possibilities that open up with the new investment that is to be made. Should large multinationals make the move to a country like Ireland, the benefits will extend to economic recovery, not just in terms of bringing new money to the county, but also providing new jobs for the nation’s skilled workforce and alleviating the unemployment rate (which has been close to 10% since early 2009).
This new €60 million investment being made in Irish solar farms is set to dramatically increase the production of solar energy in Ireland. With the people of Ireland finding a newfound trust in and reliance on renewable energy, it would appear as if the emerald isle is fast becoming a leader in terms of the solar energy industry (with thousands of individual solar panels installed annually) and living up to its ‘green’ reputation in more ways than one.