24 April 2023
By Gareth Nigel
gareth@TheCork.ie
Minister turns sod on the first project of Amarenco’s €200m investment in Solar farms in Co Cork
Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Simon Coveney today turned the sod on Amarenco’s first Solar Farm in Co Cork. The ‘Kilmoney 5MW Solar Farm’ (Amarenco Solar Kilmoney Limited) is the first of nearly 20 investments earmarked for County Cork over the next four years. The total investment will be €200m and the first €40m of Solar Farms are now in construction with four other plants underway at Mallow, Whitechurch, Inniscarra and Kanturk.
John Mullins, Executive Chairman of Amarenco is well know Cork businessman whose honours include a “Chevalier de Legion d’Honneur” thanks to the brands solar work in France. Speaking about today’s event he said “It is a great honour to have Minister Coveney turn the sod on this project in his own back yard. This plant combined with Amarenco’s other investments in Solar Farms will assist the Irish Energy Sector reach its legally binding targets by 2030. These plants will bring clean renewable energy to residential, commercial and industrial customers in the State. Amarenco will be engaging in community supports with all communities where we construct Solar Farms.”
Pictured is Simon Coveney TD, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, with Amarenco Executive Chairman John Mullins, Amarenco Staff and Project Contractors at the site of the Solar Farm in Kilmoney, Co. Cork.
Pic: Brian Lougheed
Ronan Murphy, MD, Amarenco in Ireland stated, “We are very thankful to all who have supported these projects over the years, and we particularly wish to thank our contractors, Greencells and Mainline Group and our planning consultants McCutcheon Halley.”
Minister Coveney said at the event “I am very pleased to support the first solar farm of scale to be built in Cork by Amarenco.
Solar will play a significant part of Ireland’s renewable future. Through a combination of wind and solar, Ireland has the capacity to generate significantly more electricity than our own grid requires, by harnessing renewable resources.
The future for renewables in Ireland is positive. Within the next decade Ireland will become a significant exporter of clean, green energy to the rest of Europe.
Today is an important beginning.”
About Amarenco Group
Amarenco, headquartered in Cork, was established in 2013 to finance and develop renewable energy infrastructures, particularly in France and Ireland.
Now active in Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, the group designs, develops, finances, acquires, builds and operates medium to large-scale solar photovoltaic infrastructure. It has already carried out more than 2,000 solar and solarised infrastructure projects and is the European leader in agrivoltaic infrastructure.
The Amarenco Group, which is implementing the largest storage project in Continental Europe, is also bringing energy production and consumption closer together through the digital development of short circuits.
The group, which invests more than €500m euros each year, currently employs more than 200 people worldwide with 35 based in the Cork office. By end 2022, Amarenco has reached almost 400 MW of installed solar power capacity and 1,300 delivery points deployed.
