Mr. Harvey Appelbe:

To be clear, we have either wave energy, where there is a machine on the surface capturing the motion of the waves, or we have tidal stream technology, where there is a turbine, similar to a wind turbine but under the water, and it only captures energy from the movement, caused by the moon and the sun, of water in and out of inlets. This is only possible in very constrained areas. In the case of Ireland, there are masses and masses of wave energy all the way down the west. This is because of the massive reach all the way across the Atlantic, where hundreds of miles of wind have been blowing to the point where huge waves are arriving on the west coast. There is also a lot of area, so there is very little constraint.

It is possible - we would certainly say it is theoretically possible - to produce more energy from Ireland's wave energy than Ireland consumes. However, that is not practical because wave energy is not available all of the time and it would also take an awful lot of investment and infrastructure. Therefore, we do not know how much wave energy could be commercially included in the energy mix but it would certainly be a very significant commercial component and would certainly make a very large contribution to the energy security of Ireland if it were commercialised.