Green Rebel’s Irish and global ambitions for offshore wind

Plans for offshore wind farms are at an advanced stage, with fixed and floating operators examining Irish coastline site.

Irish company Green Rebel is aiming to be a leading player in the offshore wind industry in Ireland and across the globe.

The Crosshaven-based company was established to enable the successful harnessing of offshore wind energy, working with industry in the field by providing crucial data and information.

Using their fleet of ships, aircraft, LiDAR buoys and innovative technology, the growing and experienced team specialise in the acquisition, processing, and analysis of marine, aerial and metocean data.

The company and its team help accelerate green energy developments in the most sustainable and ecologically responsible manner possible.

Green Rebel’s aerial division uses a fleet of their own aircraft that are built-for-purpose and the most environmentally friendly on the market. Each survey flight generates terabytes of high-quality imagery of the marine.

Flagship sea vessel gathering key data

One of Green Rebel’s flagship sea vessels is the Roman Rebel, an internationally renowned and custom-built survey vessel, supplemented by the building of a team of expert geoscientists and data scientists to process and analyse all data.

Green Rebel’s metocean team, meanwhile, has developed and launched a cutting-edge floating LiDAR Buoy that can provide wind profile data up to 300m.

All of this data is stored, backed up and processed in Green Rebel’s custom-built marine data centre, which consists of a suite of bespoke hardware configurations, software and AI systems housed in a secure location.

Green Rebel is also a major local employer of highly-skilled jobs from geoscientists, ecologists and surveyors to boat crew, electrical engineers and sales and marketing professionals, with plans to create 50 additional jobs in the next year.

With an important year for Ireland coming up in terms of offshore wind development, Green Rebel is aiming to be at the forefront of that development here in Ireland and across the globe, assisting industry developers in harnessing the renewable energy source into the future.

Pioneers of sustainable energy supply chains

Speaking to The Irish Examiner, Kieran Ivers, head of business development at Green Rebel, said: “We’re the first out of the traps really in terms of developing a meaningful supply chain to support offshore wind energy development.

“If you look at the UK, you can see what that has meant for job creation, industry development and other aspects. We’re looking to build on that here in the coming year and for many years to come.

“There’s a huge opportunity for Ireland in terms of offshore wind energy, and we might be seen as laggards in that regard at the moment but Europe is leading the way on a global scale,” he added.

As well as supporting development here in Ireland, Mr Ivers highlighted Green Rebel’s plans to assist developments of offshore wind technology across the globe.

“Here at Green Rebel, we have a growing supply chain and a global outlook, and our plans are really to look at the global opportunities out there as well,” he explained.

“We’re seeing opportunities in Scotland, across the UK, Europe and, most notably, in the US.

“In the past, we might have been seen as Ireland-focused but the truth is that while there are brilliant opportunities for development here in Ireland, there are also opportunities for Irish supply chain to develop and to be exported globally.”

Legislation key to offshore wind energy progress

Kieran said that the danger for supply chain in Ireland is that legislation does not get through quickly enough, or that supports for indigenous Irish industry aren’t provided by the government.

“That would be reneging on the promise of offshore wind energy and its potential for jobs creation and industry development,” he said. “We want to ensure Ireland can meet a global standard and then look globally, putting Ireland on the map in terms of supply chain and offshore wind development.”

 For this to happen, government and industry must come to the table, Mr Ivers explained.

“There is a huge appetite, from our experience, among developers to work closely with Irish content, develop Irish content and to bring it with them as they go to other parts of the world,” he said. “That can only be achieved with government support as well.”

 Ireland is and will be in competition with other European countries for the limited pool of vessels and expertise to enable this development, Green Rebel warned.

Green Rebel’s establishment and investment in a fleet of vessels and a team of experts ensures that Irish developers can support the Irish supply chain and avoid the European bottle-neck that is currently building up.

Plans for offshore wind farms at advanced stage

Plans for offshore wind farms are at an advanced stage, according to Green Rebel, with a number of potential fixed and floating operators examining sites along the Irish coastline.

Green Rebel is engaging with all developers to provide world-class data acquisition and processing capabilities on their doorstep.

With Ireland aiming to achieve net-zero no later than 2050, Green Rebel believes the country is in a prime location for optimal wind energy generation, and that it is in the position to seize upon this potential.

Mick Clifford, Mon, 22 Nov

This article first appeared on the Irish Examiner