Ireland scraps wind energy exports

DUBLIN, Ireland, April 14 (UPI) -- Irish Energy Minister Pat Rabbitte said a plan to send electricity from renewable resources to the United Kingdom won't take place as planned.

The Irish government had planned to build more than 2,000 wind turbines by 2020 to send as much as 5,000 megawatts of green energy to the British market.

Rabitte said in a statement that more energy trade with the British economy was inevitable, but the green energy project couldn't go ahead as planned.

"Economic analysis conducted on the Irish side clearly indicates that under agreed policy and regulatory conditions, renewable energy trading can deliver significant economic benefits to Ireland and the U.K., as well as being attractive to developers," he said Sunday. "However, this will not happen automatically."

Ireland since 2003 has installed approximately 150 wind farms with a total electricity capacity of 1,738 megawatts.

Rabbitte has said there might be enough wind energy on the electrical grid to meet 40 percent of the country's annual energy needs by 2020.