Political opposition continues to hinder projects designed to guarantee electricity supplies and aid the Republic in hitting climate targets, TDs and senators heard on Wednesday.
Noel Cunniffe, chief executive of industry group, Wind Energy Ireland, told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy, that Eirgrid’s north-south interconnector, which has cleared all planning hurdles, continued to face opposition.
“There is a general consensus that investment in national grid projects is good, but when it comes to local level, that gets challenged,” he said.
Mr Cunniffe pointed out that both Dáil deputies and councillors tended to oppose electricity projects at local level.
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He argued that had EirGrid succeeded with ambitious plans to improve large tracts of the national grid succeeded 10 years ago, that would have put the Republic in a strong position now to take on more, cheaper, renewable electricity.
Opposition to those plans, including from TDs and senators, forced the company to dilute or change them.
Justin Moran, the organisation’s director of external affairs, argued that “opposition to grid projects is not a victimless crime”.
He was responding to committee members who raised this week’s news that families cannot move into new homes in Portlaoise, Co Laois, because their estate does not have electricity connections.
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Mr Moran pointed out that while EirGrid received permission for plans to boost the national electricity grid supplying Laois and Kilkenny in 2014, continued opposition meant that work was only under way now.
Nicholas Tarrant, managing director, ESB Networks, said “there are places on the network where there is limited capacity, and we are working on that”.
They include Portlaoise, other similar towns along with areas such as Dublin north and west, according to the State company boss.
Regulators are weighing proposals to allow ESB Networks to spend €11.6 billion up to 2030 on boosting the infrastructure that distributes electricity from the national grid to homes and businesses, the part of the energy system for which the State company is responsible.
EirGrid could get the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities support to spend €2.6 billion on boosting the national grid and preparing it to take on more renewable power, central to the Republic’s climate targets.
Siobhán O’Shea, its chief infrastructure officer, onshore, noted that its spending plans covered 29 critical projects.
Cathal Marley, the State company’s chief executive, told the committee that the speed at which projects got planning permission had improved, but could still move faster.
He predicted that the new Planning Act passed last year should aid this.
“The main barrier to growth, once you get planning permission, is engagement with landowners, in our view that is getting more challenging,” said Mr Marley. “We really do need political support overall.”
The Oireachtas committee was assessing the barriers to the Republic cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 51 per cent – relative to 2018 levels – by 2030. The State risks missing this and faces billions of euros in penalties as a consequence.
EirGrid and ESB Networks pointed out that their investment plans aligned with Government policy, including reaching that legally binding greenhouse reduction target.
Questioned about April’s electricity blackout in Portugal and Spain, Mr Marley explained that EirGrid assessed risk all the time. “We are careful about the amount of wind we let on the system and we watch how demand is behaving,” he said.
The company keeps four fossil fuel plants working to stabilise the system on during periods when there is enough wind to meet most electricity demand.
