Irish investment company, Greencoat Renewables PLC has estimated that around 3,000ac of land in Ireland is currently used for solar farms and around 2,500ac for wind farms.
The estimation for wind farms was made by looking at sizes of hard stands, roads and substation.
The estimation for solar farms was made based on the fact that 5ac of land is usually needed for a farm, and there is currently about 600 megawatts of land based solar farms, excluding rooftop and industrial.
Based on the company’s annual report for 2023, it created 3,158 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of renewable energy in 2023, compared to 2,487GWh in 2022.
Greencoat completed four acquisitions totalling €524.3 million, generating gross cash worth €196.7 million.
The group increased its portfolio to a total of 39 renewable energy generation and storage assets, along with powering 750,000 homes.
Greencoat
The company secured access to 50% of a 1GW+ pipeline of onshore wind projects in Ireland in 2023 by entering into a long term strategic framework agreement with FuturEnergy Ireland, the state-backed joint venture between ESB and Coillte.
It expects to add an additional 50 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity through the completion of the Andella wind farm located in Valladolid, Spain and 50% of the 80MW solar farm in south Co. Meath.
The Co. Meath farm is expected to be operational in the second quarter of this year.
Upon completion, total generation capacity is expected to increase to 1.6GW. It now stands at 1.5GW.
Chair of Greencoat Renewables PLC, Rónán Murphy said: “The period saw continued growth in the year, with strong cash generation, underpinned by robust operational performance.”
“The future of renewables remains overwhelmingly positive with investment in operating assets representing an attractive, low risk way of participating in the energy transition,” Murphy added.