Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 11 December 2013

Committee on Transport and Communications: Select Sub-Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport

Rationale for Sanctioning Energy Price Increases: Discussion with Commission for Energy Regulation

2:40 pm

Mr. Dermot Nolan:

I will do my best to give an answer but Ms Mannion may wish to respond. Our legislation is supposed to protect customers, those who will actually be charged for Irish electricity in Ireland. I spoke about generation and supply. Bearing in mind what I said about the connection to the grid, the key is that we are supposed to regulate the grid. The grid has a specific legal existence in some sense. In particular, it must be a monopoly and one cannot privately build one's own grid. The statutory objective is to regulate it to set an efficient cost and to allow connections to it for generators. Without the connection to the grid, we would not have a statutory role. If, as a result of what I have alluded to, energy were not directly sold into the Irish market and people were not supplying that directly, we would not have a role.

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