September has brought with it the official start of Ireland’s storm season. While the Atlantic has been uncharacteristically calm so far this year, the ongoing El Niño phenomenon will inject more unpredictability into the weather this winter. It’s somewhat reassuring then that ESB Networks appears to have learned some valuable lessons from the most disastrous storm to hit these shores in recent years.
Storm Eowyn, which rolled across the country in late January 2025, was the most expensive weather event in Irish history, costing insurers about €301 million. The economic damage was significant, with parts of the west of Ireland without power and broadband for weeks after.
All told, the storm resulted in operating costs of €100 million last year for the ESB. The group also incurred “capital costs” of about €40 million, executive director for group finance and commercial Paul Stapleton said this week.
So what lessons did it learn? “We’ve been investing very significantly in the more vulnerable circuits in the more vulnerable parts of the country,” said Stapleton. Crucially, the group has also massively stepped up efforts to clear trees and cut back forestry, which pose a threat to power lines. This was a significant issue during Storm Eowyn and it’s clear the ESB has zeroed in on it in preparation for this coming winter.
“As part of our overall winter resilience plan, we’ve been investing hugely in enhanced timber cutting,” Stapleton said. “We’ve identified 8,000 weakened or diseased trees that are impacting on our networks and we’ve addressed those, removing them or cutting them back to a level where they’re no longer a risk.”
ESB Group has also “completed 17,000km of our regular timber cutting”, he said. A further 337km of forestry has been surveyed, with priority sites identified for cutting in advance of winter.
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The truth, however, as Stapleton said, is that “we’ll never fully mitigate the impact of extraordinary hurricane-level wind speeds”. But the scale of the ESB’s efforts to prepare for what could be a particularly nasty storm season at least inspires some confidence.
