Emergency energy legislation targets backup capacity for next winter

The Government is to rush through emergency planning legislation to ensure it can fast-track hundreds of megawatts of backup electrical capacity — likened to “jet engines” — in time for next winter.

The Dáil and Seanad will get a day each to pass the legislation next week, for which Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan received cabinet approval on Tuesday.

The State is purchasing up to 450MW of additional generation capacity to bring on stream during the winter of 2023/2024 to bolster the system amid growing risks about the reliability of older and increasingly unreliable electricity plants, some of which are being decommissioned — and growing demand from the wider economy, including data centres, for power.

Site selection and procurement for the backup capacity was commenced in July under existing legislation, but the final sites and the construction programme for the generation capacity was not available earlier.

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That has driven fears that going through the standard planning system will not meet the time frame required for these projects to be completed as and when they are needed, next winter, with the units not operational by then.

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The working title of the legislation is the Planning (Amendment) (Energy) Bill 2022. A spokeswoman for Mr Ryan said he is “introducing emergency legislation intended to ensure that the next tranche of two emergency generation projects can be brought forward”.

Mr Ryan this week described the mobile turbines that are being ordered as “jet engines”. About 24 of them are to be installed across two sites. Contracts with suppliers are being worked on but they will not be delivered until the middle of next year. It’s expected they will provide backup power for three years during winter.

What about evictions?

Meanwhile, the Oireachtas committee on housing has agreed unanimously to waive pre-legislative scrutiny on the new Bill to ban all evictions from private-rented accommodation until next April. At a meeting on Thursday morning, the committee voted to allow the Residential Tenancies (Deferment of Termination Dates of Certain Tenancies) Bill 2022 to go directly to the Dáil and Seanad once it is drafted. This will allow a speedy passage through the Oireachtas.

Under current Oireachtas rules, proposed legislation must be sent to an all-party committee before drafting is completed to allow it scrutinise its provisions. There is a provision for the Cabinet to seek for that condition to be waived when the legislation is urgent. That occurred in this case.

There has been across-the-board backing for the eviction ban in the Dáil and Seanad, although Opposition parties have argued it should have been introduced much earlier.

Chairman of the housing committee Stephen Matthews (Green Party) wrote to Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien informing him of the decision on Thursday.

He also said the committee had included a “strong recommendation” that where a notice to quit is issued that the relevant local authority is informed as well as the Residential Tenancies Board.