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IRELAND IS SET to start seriously investing in solar energy as the ESB plans to construct dozens of solar farms across the country.
The state-owned electricity company recently issued a contract notice looking for services to help with the installation of the renewable energy facilities.
It said that it plans to develop 20 to 30 ground-mounted solar farms that would each have a capacity of between 5 megawatts (MW) and 20MW.
The ESB said it plans to develop “up to 100MW, with the potential that this may extend to 500MW in aggregate” between the second quarter of this year and the end of 2021.
For context, Ireland currently has about 1MW of installed solar capacity, enough to power between 150 and 300 homes. There are no commercial solar farms in operation in the country.
ESB plans
The ESB said while individual solar farms were not expected to have a capacity of more than 20MW, “there is the potential that certain individual developments will be larger”.
“The location of these proposed solar farms will be in both the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland,” it said.
When contacted by Fora, a spokesman for the ESB said that the organisation will “wait to see the level of interest that comes in” before making a final decision as to what the level of capacity will be.
The organisation is looking for contractors to start work on the semi-state’s own sites, joint-venture sites or leased sites.
He said the organisation is working with a “number of landowners to develop opportunities to deliver ground-mounted solar (farms)”.
Cost unknown
The ESB representative would not reveal how much the works are expected to cost and would only say that prices have fallen “dramatically” over the past five years, and further reductions “are expected over the next few years as well as an increasing in efficiency of equipment”.
Last year the Irish Solar Energy Association estimated that it cost less than €6.8 million to develop a 5MW solar farm, or just under €1.4 million per MW. That price was expected to drop below €1.2 million per MW by 2017.
Although there has been an increase in renewable energy in Ireland with EU rules that require 20% of the country’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2020, most of the investment so far has gone towards wind farms.
Ireland is estimated to have just over 3 gigawatts (GW) of installed wind capacity – around 3,000 times current solar capacity. The UK, in comparison, has 8.4GW of solar energy installed.
Competition
However, the ESB is not the only organisation looking to develop solar farms in Ireland.
Amarenco, a solar energy investment firm headed up by former Bord Gáis chief executive John Mullins, has secured a €180 million investment and has plans to build more than 30 solar farms across the south and south-east of Ireland.
UK-based Lightsource Renewable Energy, Europe’s largest solar energy company, has also said that it plans invest several hundred million euro into Ireland over the next number of years.
Written by Paul O’Donoghue and originally published on Fora, a new business publication for Irish startups and SMEs.
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State funding for dental care dropped by 30% while only this week the politicians are looking to increase their own wages.
And before anyone gets on the “dentists make too much money” bandwagon, the payment for medical card treatments doesn’t even pay enough to cover the time needed to throughly clean the surgery between patients and the new PPE needed to treat them so why work for free or at a loss ?
@David Jones: And dental materials are very expensive. Also in most cases people wouldn’t have to pay for lots of treatment if they look after their oral health properly, and go for regular free checkup and clean which detect issues early on and prevent major treatment being needed.
@David Jones: Sure they don’t David…1000 quid for a root canal on a molar with temporary crown. It took an 1 hour 30 mins. The tooth will need a permanent crown (about another 900 quid). I guess dentists make up for this ‘shortfall’ with private patients. You never wondered why people traveled to have dental work done elsewhere in Europe? As for ppe costs…give me a break. Gloves and smocks. Then additional bleach IPA cleaning. The disposables would already be changed patient to patient…the equipment would already be there to perform the cleaning. You’re basically wiping down the chair and patient contact surfaces. It’s taking ten minutes from what I see between patients. I’ve not known a dentist struggling to make ends meet at anytime in my life.
@David Jones, my dentist charges me an additional €12 for that service, are you telling me a dentist is getting less than €12?
@David Jones: I was quoted €850 for a root canal and a further €600 for the crown just a month ago. None of that is covered by the medical card, an implant (I would require 5) is €2000 per tooth. A denture is €1000.
Sure a dentist has a lot of overheads but my god can they charge.
@Rostyballs78: there is a reason crowns and implants cost a lot. For crowns the dental technician fee has to be considered. And for implants the implant itself is not cheap. You also need to fully scrub up with proper surgical PPE and equipment, alot of people are also sedated for the treatment so there’s the cost of the anaesthetist too.
@David Jones: dentists on €70ph !!
Meanwhile the taxpayers have hardly a tooth left.
@RogersRabbit: very true. Have worked every day of my working life and get pretty much nothing. Even the ‘free’ yearly check was nothing more than a cursory glance.
@RogersRabbit: A lot of us medical card holders have worked all our lives and paid our taxes just like you but had to retire at 65….no choice to stay on.
The scheme was rediculous anyway. Only 1 filling allowed a year, but extractions are free, what sort of “prevention” is that? Not surprised older people are not going to the dentist.
@Jane Alford: prevention means not needing the extraction or filling in the first place. Which most people wouldn’t if they went for regular checkups.
@Jane Alford: 2 fillings per year.
@Sam Harms: It really depends on your teeth. Regular checkups just mean at least one filling every visit…
@William Ryan: And if an existing filling falls out, as they do on a regular basis, refilling counts as a “filling”, there’s no warranty on fillings.
Doesn’t seem fair though people on medical cards could get free dental care while the rest of us pay for teeth cleaning etc. It was 120 euro the other day for my partner.
@Karen Doyle: I work full time and am a medical card holder. I had to pay €90 for a cleaning just after Xmas. It doesn’t cover cleaning, it covers the 2 mins the dentist looks into your mouth before deciding on what needs to be done. More of the the “they get everything for free” brigade. Don’t mind anyone’s actual circumstances
@Karen Doyle: you get one free checkup and a clean that you will have to pay a max of €12 towards each year through prsi.
@Karen Doyle: maybe you should change your dentist. There is a national scheme for one teeth cleaning per year to those with enough PSR contributions.
There is two dentist schemes for adults, card holders and everybody. The scheme for everybody depends of previous contribution via taxes deducted in the payslips. Cleaning teeth and removal of wisdom teeth is available free to everybody with enough PSR contributions. However medical card holders, adults, are excluded
@Nicola Monaghan: cleaning is free once per year with enough PSR contributions regardless of having or not medical card. Check the HSE site
@Karen Doyle: wtf dentists are hardly free for MC holders youd see a dentist cheaper on PRSI you tool
@Karen Doyle: Teeth cleaning on MC is not available.
@Karen Doyle: I paid 140 in smiles for small filling. Rip off.
Meanwhile, the state has UNLIMITED FUNDS to provide free legal aid for our criminals!
It doesn’t make any sense. I understand why dentists are leaving the scheme. The scheme is like only repair the broken and never program essential surgery, wait until the issue turns into emergency and then … will see …. how many PRS contributions have the patient? This is like the cancer screening schemes wouldn’t treat the cancer for not having enough PSR contributions
The government seems to see the dentists as a beauty and superfluous thing, maybe for them. However our health starts in our mouth as we are what we eat. Poverty has impact on the teeth and mouth. The quality of the drinking water supplies to our homes also impacts on the health of our mouths. Any policy investing the teeth and mouth health will reduce the cost of side effects saving money of the taxpayers at long term … Besides it is a temporary thanks to the children scheme
That never mentioned adults with special needs.They have no PRSI contributions only their medical cards.Dentists will not take them now
A lot of dentists on here by the comments.
@Peter Coen: true money, money, money. What’s new.
That never mentioned adults with special needs.They have no PRSI contributions only their medical cards.Dentists will not take them now.
“Dentists simply can’t afford to participate” oh my word, they can easily afford to reduce the cost of the treatments as it is and still make a massive profit
@Mickomacko: nah bruv
The link to Treatment Benefit Scheme available to those with enough social insurance contributions, the prsi on our payslips. The scheme is managed by the Department of Social Protection. Dentist can apply directly …. for the comments above it seems not the best practice … the bill must to disclose the Treatment Benefit discount
You can know if your dentist have applied and got it by making a Freedom of Information request to Social Welfare
https://www.gov.ie/en/service/1fb655-treatment-benefit-scheme/
My dentist now refuses to take the medical card. I’ve rung every dentist within 80km of where I live. Those still accepting the medical card are either only treating children or they are not accepting new patients. That includes so-called health centers.
There is zero chance of me being able to afford two fillings privately. Zero way to get €300. So, I’m in pain and will just have to suffer the medieval state of affairs in this country.
There has to be some alternative to this total fiasco. Surely they cannot expect to leave medical card holders in limbo like this forever ????
it made me think back in for a long time if you had a state medical card only pulling was free and because we had no money for fillings I have now 3 caps . I never understood why they where so backward cruel here . But I still live I wonder when this rule changed
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