Airtricity founder funds new wind company

From one success to the next? We had a mention of NTR's investment (after selling off their 51% piece of Airtricity) into Sterling (a cool $100 mil.). Now via The Guardian we catch up with Airtricity's founder:

The founder of wind energy company Airtricity, sold early this year for 1.9 billion euros ($2.98 billion), wants to raise 300 million euros to fund a new company Mainstream Renewable Power, he said on Tuesday.

The new Dublin-based company will develop wind, concentrated solar power and marine power projects, and aims to sell some resulting income to investment funds looking for annual 7 percent returns and keep expected profits above that for itself.

Chief Executive Eddie O'Connor has ploughed most of his fortune from the recent sale into the new company and rejected criticism that renewable energy is too costly or that capacity bottlenecks made ambitious targets unachievable.

"It is realistic," O'Connor said of UK targets announced two weeks ago to get about one third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, compared to less than 5 percent now....MORE