It took a number of years of negotiations between the regulatory authorities in the State and in Northern Ireland before the all-island electricity market began in 2007.
The benefits of an integrated electricity system on the island of Ireland were seen as substantial: it would make for enhanced security of supply, reduce the cost of electricity for all on the island and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The final agreement on how it would work assumed that a major new electricity interconnector would be quickly built between the two jurisdictions to properly integrate the two island systems.
Today, 18 years after the all-island system began working, the new interconnector has still not been delivered and won’t be in operation until 2032. In the meantime two interconnectors to Britain have been built.
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Economic studies covering the 2007 to 2020 period have shown that, as a result of the failure to properly connect the two systems, electricity prices have been significantly higher than necessary and greenhouse gas emissions have also been greatly elevated.
For example, the Kilroot coal-burning power station, near Larne, had to be kept working until late in 2023 to keep the lights on in Northern Ireland. Had the new interconnector been in place, surplus cleaner power from the Republic would have substituted for Kilroot, and consumers north and south would have had cheaper power.
The failure to progress the interconnector is due to delays, north and south, in the planning and permitting system.
So I was interested to read how much better things were done more than 80 years ago when north-south relations were much more frosty, but linking the two electricity systems could be achieved rapidly.
A fascinating history by Michael Kennedy of relations between Northern Ireland and the State from 1925 to 1969 (Division and Consensus, IPA, 2000) shows how, despite difficult official relationships, it was possible to provide electricity interconnection rapidly when faced with an emergency.
When the Shannon hydroelectric scheme was completed at the end of the 1920s the ESB thought it would have lots of spare electricity and offered it to its Northern counterparts. However, the Northern government was reluctant to connect to the Irish Free State.
In 1934, when drought led to reduced water levels in the Shannon, there was a shortage of electricity in the south. This time the ESB sought to connect to the Northern system to import rather than sell electricity, but again the answer was no.
Days before the second World War began, the ESB could see that the Northern electricity system was going to be vulnerable to bombing as there was only one generating station, this being in Belfast docks. They wrote to the authorities in the North on August 23rd, 1939, suggesting an interconnection with the Republic so that if the Germans bombed the single power plant in Belfast then the lights would stay on. However, the North still procrastinated.
There was heavy bombing of Belfast in April 1941, in which many people died. Although the power station in the docks was still working, these raids exposed its vulnerability. The British minister for aviation, Lord Beaverbrook, wrote to the Northern government early in May 1941, telling them to “cop on” and build the link. This was important for the war effort as Belfast was supplying lots of aircraft for the RAF.
Agreement was reached early in September 1941 on the interconnector. It was finished early in 1942 about five months after the decision to invest. The ESB built and paid for the section in the Republic, and the UK paid for the rest. Under wartime conditions this was a remarkable achievement. Neither planning restrictions nor concerns about neutrality got in the way of keeping the power on in Northern Ireland.
In the event, that interconnector was never used and it was decommissioned early in the 1950s. But the speed with which it was delivered, in difficult wartime conditions, is in stark contrast to the decades of delay with the latest interconnector proposal.
The proposed new north-south link will need to have at least 200 times the capacity of the earlier wires. As Storm Éowyn showed, we are highly dependent on electricity today for everyday life not only for light and hot water, but also to run our domestic appliances, heat our homes, charge our phones and, increasingly, power our cars and bicycles. Wind-generated electricity is also Ireland’s main clean energy source.
Given how dependent on electricity we have become, surely we should be even quicker to deliver a vital interconnector today than we were in the 1940s.
