Energy Views

This is the autobiography of Dr Eddie O'Connor, the Irishman founder of wind farm developer Airtricity, wind/solar developer Mainstream Renewables and supergrid company Supernode. (As always, my views are my own). Before his own firms, he cut his teeth working for ESB (Ireland's then monopoly power generator and transmission provider), before leading Bord na Móna (BNM) the state-owned producer of peat for power stations. The memoir's title comes courtesy of a Civil Servant's label of Eddie during the period when he more than halved BNM's workforce (before increasing productivity from under 1,700 tonnes per head, to over 5,000). In short: it's a great book. Eddie is a no-nonsense and thoughtful writer and, given his impressive achievements, modest. The main focus is on his time at the four companies, and his leadership ethos, and only very briefly about his upbringing. Within its 230 pages, A Dangerous Visionary describes how he built Airtricity, whic...