The 25-megawatts Arklow Bank Offshore Wind Park was located on a sandbank about 10 kilometres off County Wicklow in the Irish Sea, just south of the capital Dublin.

Co-developed by GE Energy and Irish company Airtricity, the seven wind turbines are capable of meeting the annual electricity requirements of 16,000 homes. The 3.6-megawatt turbines are 73.5 metres high, possessing rotors with a 104-metre diameter.

Ahern said that under a 2001 EU directive, Ireland was required to increase green electricity consumption to 13.2 percent of total electricity by 2010.

"Our objective is to meet this target as a minimum, and preferably, to surpass it.

"The challenge is to put in place a regime, which will give fair and reasonable returns to developers and incentivise 'bankable' projects, while also taking account of national competitiveness, environmental challenges and the interests of consumers," the prime minister added.

The Arklow Bank project was first introduced by Airtricity as phase one of a much larger offshore wind farm it proposed to build over the coming years.

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