{"id":361105,"date":"2026-03-23T16:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T16:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/361105\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T16:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T16:20:16","slug":"scandinavian-energy-giant-adds-206mw-of-extra-solar-power-to-irish-energy-grid-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/361105\/","title":{"rendered":"Scandinavian energy giant adds 206MW of extra solar power to Irish energy grid \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Renewable energy firm <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/statkraft\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/statkraft\/\">Statkraft<\/a> has activated two new solar farms in Ireland, bringing the amount of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/solar-power\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/solar-power\">solar<\/a> energy it is feeding into the grid here to above half a gigawatt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Scandinavian company said it had \u201cenergised\u201d a 174 megawatt (MW) solar project in Clonfad, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/westmeath\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/westmeath\">Co Westmeath<\/a>, and a 32MW operation at Irishtown on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dublin\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dublin\">Dublin<\/a>&#8211;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/meath\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/meath\">Meath<\/a> border. A megawatt of power is considered enough to power between 700 and 750 homes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Statkraft, which described itself as Europe\u2019s largest producer of renewable energy, said the two new projects brought its total installed solar capacity in Ireland to 560MWs, or over half a gigawatt. This, it said, represented just over two-fifths of the 1.3 gigawatts in Irish installed solar energy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Statkraft Ireland managing director Kevin O\u2019Donovan said the two new solar farms represented \u201ca positive step in a very turbulent time. With the current geopolitical challenges, we are seeing an ever-increasing need to deliver renewables to ensure safe and secure, domestic energy supplies\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The milestone, he said, represented another step in strengthening Ireland\u2019s energy security and accelerating the delivery of home-grown electricity at a time of growing demand and international volatility in our energy market.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ronan Power, chief executive of industry group Solar Ireland, said: \u201cLarge projects like Clonfad and Irishtown are helping bring more clean, home-grown electricity on to the grid at a time when energy security and affordability are key priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He said it was important that policy, grid investment and planning frameworks continued to support the deployment of solar and other renewables across the State.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Statkraft said Clonfad and Irishtown would begin distributing a promised community benefit fund to their local areas over the next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Renewable energy firm Statkraft has activated two new solar farms in Ireland, bringing the amount of solar energy&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,615,61,60,15949,7617,163321,59],"class_list":["post-361105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-dublin","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-meath","tag-solar-power","tag-statkraft","tag-westmeath"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}