State-owned ESB is joining forces with Harmony Solar to spend €30 million on building power plants that they say will provide enough energy for 230,000 homes.
Solar power plants use panels of specially constructed cells that convert the sun’s energy to electricity that can be used by homes and businesses.
ESB and Harmony plan to build solar plants that will generate 1,000 mega watts (MW) of electricity, which the pair calculate could power around 230,000 family homes.
The partnership intends spending an initial €30 million on the project, which will take Harmony's proposed developments in Wexford and Kildare and expand them from their planned capacity of 300MW to 1,000MW.
ESB and Harmony will increase their investment from the first €30 million as the project develops, they said.
The State-owned company wants to shift its electricity generation from fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal towards renewable sources, including wind energy and solar power.
John McEneaney, Harmony Solar’s chairman, welcomed news of the partnership with the ESB.
“We look forward to working together, and we are confident that this partnership will further add to our ability to deliver solar power to even more Irish homes in the future.”
Jim Dollard, executive director, ESB generation and trading, pointed out that the company was already building solar energy power plants.
“This agreement with Harmony Solar represents another significant milestone, bolstering the company’s solar portfolio and our wider ambition in developing renewable electricity generation projects of scale.”
Harmony Solar is an Irish-owned and backed company based in Wexford.
