The outlook for this winter published by Eirgrid provides some room for optimism about the security of energy supply. However, it indicates that the balance between supply and demand is still tight. As well as creating a level of short-term risk, this also underlines the need for a longer-term plan to secure supplies during the energy transition, due to be contained in a long-awaited Department of Energy strategy.
For now, the outlook appears better than it did heading into last winter. The State has scrambled to organise new emergency gas generation – due to come on stream shortly – while Moneypoint is also to be kept available when needed.
The latter is not ideal from an environmental point of view. It is symptomatic, however, of the limited short-term options available to the State. After initial difficulties in securing extra capacity, new, short-term emergency gas generation plant will now become available.
Still, the balance between supply and demand remains tight, meaning the system operates at a higher level of risk than is set as a target by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities. Eirgrid says it is confident that interruptions in supply can be avoided, helped by agreements with major customers with their own generation capacity. It is a better situation than heading into last winter, though still far from ideal.
The Eirgrid outlook provides some level of comfort for households and businesses that more robust plans are being put in place to try to protect supplies. However, as an island reliant on energy imports – and with conflict in the Middle East raising questions about oil supplies – geopolitics creates risks for this winter, as well as the weather.
More work is needed to secure supplies in this uncertain environment and to plan and invest for the energy transition to come, which will require a 50 per cent increase in electricity supply by 2030. A huge drive is needed to invest in renewables and to develop the national grid. And clear thinking is needed on what other supply sources are required as the transition progresses.
As well as ambition, realism is essential. Eirgrid chief executive Mark Foley said on Monday on RTÉ's Morning Ireland that a facility to store LNG was “an urgent matter for the State.” An Bord Pleanála refused to grant permission for a privately owned LNG facility in the Shannon Estuary early this year, though the forthcoming official report may give the green light for a State development in this area. The shape and extent of this will be closely watched.
Much more also needs to be done. Crucially, a new, well-resourced planning regime is needed to speed future investment in wind energy and the national grid. If these investments are not delivered, Ireland’s energy transition will be in tatters, at a huge environmental, economic and social cost.