The Green Party said today it would introduce special financial supports for renewable energy sources if in government.
Speaking following a visit to Airtricity's Arklow bank wind farm off the coast of Co Wicklow, Green Party leader Trevor Sargent said the party would introduce a "fixed-price support mechanism for offshore wind, wave and tidal power supplies to give a secure investment climate for what are still experimental technologies.
"The Green Party believes that the Arklow wind bank can and should be developed to its full capacity," Mr Sargent said.
"The seven turbines already installed at Arklow can power some 16,000 homes, but developing the bank to its full planning permission capacity would power 400,000 homes and deliver a saving of 1.2 million tonnes of CO2 per year. In government we would pursue this as an immediate priority."
Mr Sargent said the EU's recent research and development budget includes funding for an offshore "supergrid" to connect wind farms in the Baltic, North and Irish seas to reduce some of the "variability" problems with wind power.
"In Ireland we need to develop the offshore wind farms to make that grand vision a reality," he said.
"In the meantime we should also be extending electricity interconnection between Ireland and the UK, and possibly France, to allow us to export future surpluses of green power."
The Green Party leader said best estimates suggested that Ireland has the wind, wave and tidal resources to supply its own domestic electricity and still have power left to sell to other European countries.
"The Government has failed utterly to promote renewable energy projects. The last offshore wind project to receive grant aid was the Kish Bank project, off the coast of north Dublin.
"This didn't make it beyond concept stage, and since that failure in 2003 there has been no state support for offshore wind projects whatsoever."
Mr Sargent was canvassing with Green Party election candidates in Co Wicklow on the tenth day official day of the campaign.