Airtricity

From Wikicompany

Airtricity, a subsidiary of NTR plc, is a wind farm operator in Ireland.

Energy production

Airtricity is focused on three main areas:

• Wind farm development
• Finance and ownership of wind farms
• Green electricity supply

Airtricity has a generation capacity of 228 MW spread over the counties Cavan, Donegal and Sligo. Airtricity also operated the Arklow Bank windfarm, the largest wind farm at the time of its construction.

Airtricity is currently expanding operations into Scotland, England, and parts of the USA. Airtricity currently has several thousends of megawatts of capacity in the planning and construction stages.

In Ireland, Airtricity only sells electricity via the Electricity Supply Board (ESB), as the Irish energy market has not yet been fully opened up to competition. Airtricity also supplies the incumbent state owned ESB with energy due to a lack of increased power supply in recent years caused by the closure of peat-fuelled power stations in the Irish midlands, supplied by Bord na Móna.

Control structure

Airtricity is 51% owned by NTR plc - the company that operates the East-Link and West-Link toll bridges in Dublin - and is run by Dr. Eddie O' Conner, former head of Bord na Móna.

Company name

The company name is a portmanteau of air and electricity, but is also derived from the word Éire, Irish for "Ireland" (the company was originally known as Eirtricity).

Concerns

Concerns have been raised that wind powered energy generation place a false economy on the electricity market; this is because as more farms are connected thus conventional methods of generation are required to "cover" in times of low wind speed. Visual pollution and the placement of wind farms is also a concern.

History

Airtricity was established in 1997.