I will make one comment on the point the Deputy made about the PSO and carbon tax. The PSO was always a protection, in a sense, against volatile markets. At times like this, when the price of gas is very high and the price of electricity is driven up, the PSO falls away and drops dramatically. The PSO is having the opposite effect. It is being taken out at the moment and that is reducing the price increase effect. It is doing what it was designed to do. It provides a floor at times when gas prices are low. When gas…

As I have said, I expect the Oireachtas committee, the House and stakeholders to be able to see these carbon budgets when the Climate Change Advisory Council delivers them at the end of this month or the first week in October at the latest and then very much to get engaged. On the alignment between economic, social and environmental objectives, the way the Bill was passed was to allow for all stakeholders, particularly Members of the Oireachtas, to make their contribution and for us to debate within this House how …

The Government Statement on the Role of Data Centres in Ireland's Enterprise Strategy 2018 acknowledged the role of data centres as part of the digital and communications infrastructure for many sectors of our economy. The statement also noted that data centres pose considerable challenges to the future planning and operation of Ireland’s power system. In 2020, data centres accounted for approximately 11% of the total electricity used in Ireland, demonstrating that the impact of data centres on Ireland’s energy dem…

There is no division in Government in policy terms on this issue. We all agree that meeting our climate targets has primacy. Every sector and industry is going to have to contribute to that. At the same time, as Deputy O'Rourke said in the previous question, we need economic and social balance. The digital industries we have in this country play a huge part in providing us with the finance to be able to achieve many of the social objectives we have. We all use mobile phones daily and everything goes through data ce…

I do not believe we will have 50% of our power going to data centres. I do not believe the attention going to this one issue, and it is one we have to manage, is reflecting the real challenge. One of the challenges at present is that we need new back-up generation to help manage not just data centres but also our use of electricity for transport, heat and a range of different areas. We have 2 GW of old conventional plant that we need to switch off in the next five years. We need to replace this with balancing capab…

The programme for Government commits to expanding and incentivising microgeneration to help people generate renewable electricity for their own use and to sell excess electricity back to the grid. My Department outlined proposals for a new microgeneration support scheme in a public consultation that closed in February last. A summary report of the submissions received has been published on my Department's website. While the primary aim of a microgeneration scheme is to enable a household to meet its own electricity…

Many of the grant schemes we have in place are associated with higher BER standards. This is because, for example, if a building is not properly insulated, the use of a heat pump can be very wasteful. We want to incentivise retrofitting and to make sure there is efficiency in electricity use and in every other area first. There is always a desire to connect efficiency with any grant system. The microgeneration support price will be subject to the CRU details, which are to come out in the coming weeks. It needs to b…

The Deputy is right. To go back to the just transition we were talking about earlier, no sector should be left behind. That is why there is a commitment in the Housing for All strategy, published two weeks ago, that we would put in place conditions, over a suitable time period to give landlords advance notice such that those rental properties would have to meet a rising BER standard so that the renter would not be disadvantaged and left paying very high energy bills and having an unhealthy apartment. That has to be…

The Celtic interconnector is a €1 billion electricity interconnector jointly proposed by EirGrid and the French transmission system operator, RTÉ, Réseau de Transport d’Électricité. It is proposed to be a 575 km long 700 MW cable from the north-west coast of France to the south coast of Ireland, with 500 km of this being subsea. At this scale, it would be able to provide electricity for some 450,000 homes. The Celtic interconnector will provide a reliable high-capacity electricity link between Ireland and France th…

I will use another project as an example, the Greenlink interconnector, which the Deputy knows runs from near Great Island power station in Wexford to the UK. It is a similar 500 MW interconnector. My understanding is that its operators got planning permission and a foreshore licence in 2019. They applied for it and their final planning applications were just agreed this year. They expect to come online, as it were, in 2023. Similar timelines apply to the Celtic interconnector. We expect that it will be live by 202…

The scale of change is beyond compare. Much of it will be offshore renewable power. In our case, it will be something like 35 GW of power in the next two decades at least. We are not alone in that. The UK is looking for a similar amount of power from its waters. Similarly, for the rest of north-west Europe, we are looking at up to 200 GW or 300 GW of offshore wind from the likes of the North Sea. Coming with that offshore wind will be a north-west regional electricity market grid. The North Seas countries' offshore…

Ireland is committed to concerted global action to address the climate crisis and engages in negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC, and the Paris Agreement through its membership of the European Union. Ireland has actively engaged with its EU partners in preparation for the 26th meeting of COP in Glasgow, which takes place from 31 October to 12 November 2021.  The EU’s official position for the COP will be finalised at the Environment Council in October, which I will a…

I have no intention of doing that but I will be honest that I see the key diplomatic issue in Glasgow as a slightly broader one. The real issue in Glasgow will be how we get agreement with the developing world in terms of a global response to climate action that is socially just. I will go proudly as a representative of a country that has lived up to its commitments, unlike other countries, to provide climate finance for adaptation, particularly in Africa and other countries, which are the first places bearing the …

We are in Government to try to change the system. We will work with the international system to make it work. We will work with other countries in the implementation of the Paris climate agreement and the global biodiversity conventions, which are equally important. In terms of systems not working, we have an ecological system crisis. That is why I go back to focusing on adaptation and resilience because it will be about nature-based solutions, often supporting much more local initiatives and less big corporate, bi…

I read out similar written responses previously, so I will address the question directly, if I may. In regard to blackouts this winter, a variety of factors have led to the difficult and tight circumstances we are in. As the Deputy noted, there were two amber alerts last week, which occur when the power is less than something like 400 MW or 500 MW. If another large plant came down, we might have to shed loads, which is when an amber alert would occur. We are in these circumstances for a variety of reasons, includin…

It is a very significant issue throughout Europe and the world. I addressed it earlier but to reiterate, the primary reason for the higher prices this winter relates to a very dramatic spike in international gas prices. Gas is an internationally traded commodity and a fungible market that is influenced by events throughout the world. There has been a significant boost to the economy in Asia as it emerges from the Covid pandemic, and a considerable increase in demand for gas there has drawn much liquefied natural ga…

Yes, we are. Critically, EirGrid and CRU are engaging first with industrial customers, which may have demand flexibility. As I said earlier, given that we have such a high level of renewables in our system, we are good at this type of demand management and balancing between variable demand and variable supply. The first people to turn to, therefore, are some of the large industrial users to see whether they can manage their processes and production use. Nevertheless, for all of us the signal should be clear. Relian…

Offshore wind energy will help Ireland get to at least 70% renewable electricity by 2030 and supports the drive to net zero emissions by 2050. We have a target of 5 GW of offshore wind power by 2030 in the programme for Government and a further 30 GW in the subsequent decade. Ireland's climate ambitions will see investment of tens of billions of euro in offshore renewable electricity projects. The first offshore wind developments are expected to be along the east coast in the coming years, where shallower waters ar…

I agree with the Deputy. There is significant potential for Mayo in the development of renewable energy power systems. In the auction process we had last year for the first renewable energy support scheme, four projects were successful in the county - three wind farms and one solar farm as I recall. All four are now going to construction. I understand there is another stream of further potential solar and wind projects, which will likely get into the next auction system that will start this autumn. I keep going bac…

It will take time but I see it tapping into the resource we have, particularly in the north-west. This is inevitable because where we have the really heavy wind resources, off the north-west coast of Ireland, is probably one of the best places on the planet. We have real skill and capability in industrial engineering processing so we can bring it ashore and use it. The most critical development in that regard is the Maritime Area Planning Bill, which is coming into the Oireachtas this autumn. We need to get that th…