Powering up the capital city

Eirgrid is planning a major upgrade of the Dublin electricity grid costing more than €1 billion at today’s prices to meet growing demand in the capital as well as to facilitate Government renewable energy targets. The project will involve the installation of up to 50km of underground electricity cables citywide. Some of these cables will replace ageing circuits while others will be new installations.

Technical studies have identified that cables linking substations at North Wall and Poolbeg, Finglas and North Wall, Poolbeg and Carrickmines, and two cables linking Inchicore and Poolbeg need to be replaced. Furthermore, a new connection linking Carrickmines and Inchicore is required. The studies have also identified a possible requirement for new cables to feed into potential new substations in the north and west of the city.

The planned upgrade is based on the findings of the Shaping our Electricity Future consultation carried out by Eirgrid last year, according to chief infrastructure officer Michael Mahon. “We have been looking at what we need to do to decarbonise the electricity system and society,” he points out. “The target was to have 70 per cent renewables on the grid by 2030 and that has now risen to up to 80 per cent. One thing that quickly became apparent was the need to upgrade the system in Dublin.”

That upgrade is required due to increasing demand. “We need to meet the growing and changing electricity needs of Dublin,” Mahon adds. “We are all using more power in our homes and businesses and the population continues to grow. We also need to cater for the electrification of transport systems, vehicles, heating and the development of housing, offices, and other large energy users. The ESB has said it needs more power from the transmission system to facilitate ongoing developments like these as well as Dart West, Metro North and so on.”

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The project will also facilitate offshore wind generation. “There is a lot of potential for offshore wind generation off the east coast and we need to find a way of getting it to Dublin which will be the main consumer of the power,” he continues.

Up until now, onshore wind generation has been mainly concentrated in the west of the country and Eirgrid has been engaged in a number of projects to transport to the east coast and Dublin area. “But it meets a bottleneck in Dublin in terms of infrastructure and we need to get it past the M50 to get to people’s homes,” he explains. “A number of the existing cables are up to 50 years old. We need new, higher capacity cables to meet the needs of the people of Dublin.”

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All of the new cablings will be laid underground using existing road networks where possible. “That’s standard for the way electricity grids work in major cities. We will have to identify new routes for the cables. We are at peak demand in Dublin at the moment, there is no spare capacity on the system. We can’t take the existing cables out of service for long enough to do it. We can’t take them out of use for two years or more.”

To help minimise disruption and work as efficiently as possible, EirGrid is co-ordinating with a wide range of organisations, including ESB Networks, Gas Networks Ireland, Irish Water and Dublin Bus. This is taking place through the newly established Dublin Infrastructure Forum chaired by former Engineers Ireland president PJ Rudden.

“Co-ordination with other state agencies is key and we are working very hard with them to minimise disruption during the course of the project,” says Mahon. “We know that there will be a considerable amount of roadworks needed to complete the works. We also understand that electricity infrastructure projects like these affect local residents and businesses. The last thing we want to do is install cables one year and have someone coming along the next year to do something else.”

Public consultation commenced last month with a series of webinars for the general public, community and business community. The next step will see the establishment of a community forum and business forum.

“Public engagement is an absolute priority for us. We will give back to communities as part of our community benefit policy while the works are being carried out. Our support will focus on issues of community, sustainability and biodiversity. We will be led by local stakeholders on the best ways to use the community funds set aside for these projects so that directly affected communities benefit.”

Design work and consultations will continue for the next two years. “We hope that construction work will start by the end of 2024 or early 2025 and to have the project complete by 2030,” Mahon concludes.

eirgrid.ie/Dublin