Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 28 June 2012
150 Deputy Michael Healy-Rae asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources in view of the possibility of Irish windfarms exporting energy to England which could bring a much needed jobs boost to our country, the assistance that he will give to supporting such a project; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31405/12]
Amharc ar fhreagraLast week, building on the June 2011 British Irish Council agreement on developing an all islands energy approach, I had the latest in a series of bilateral meetings with UK Energy Minister Charles Hendry on plans to develop renewable electricity trade between the two countries. Both sides agreed to work towards concluding a Memorandum of Understanding by the end of the year. This will be a critical step in ensuring that cross-Border renewable trade can take place. Officials from both Departments are examining a range of issues around the electricity market, regulatory and technical grid areas to underpin the creation of cross jurisdictional renewable electricity trade.
Increased interconnection between the two islands offers Irish developers the prospect of being able to access a much larger electricity market. The electricity market in GB is around ten times the scale of the electricity market in Ireland. In the short term there are opportunities for on and off shore wind and biomass projects, but in the medium to longer term as technologies mature and become commercially deployable, there will also be opportunities for wave and tidal developers. The volume of trade that could develop has the potential to become very significant over time. Ireland has a renewable energy resource that is significantly in advance of this island's market scale. The challenge for developers will be to come forward with projects of scale that are economically viable and environmentally acceptable. There are several large developers already seriously examining projects and some of these proposals also involve developing pumped hydro storage options.
There are clearly construction jobs while the projects are being built, but if projects of scale can be developed, then there will be an opportunity to capture some of the development value chain in Ireland as well as the job opportunities in the operations and maintenance areas. Both Enterprise Ireland and the IDA are taking account of opportunities as part of their overall Cleantech market development and are actively engaged with companies in this promising economic sector.
