Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Foley, Mr. McCormick and Ms Hedin. I have a number of questions on making changes to the grid for the future. We know there is a potential for up to 75% of intermittent power to be integrated on the grid. I understand that we went as high as more than 60% and as low as 4% on a couple of days during the summer. Obviously, we were not using much power on those days. That would tell me that solar power is not being integrated into the grid. In terms of trying to cater for micro-generation, if we had a lot of small companies, private individuals or farmers supplying small-scale generation, would the grid be able to cope with it? What are the major barriers to that happening? While we do not have all-day sunshine, we have significant periods of sunshine. However, we do not seem to have progressed as far as other countries in harnessing solar energy.

If electric vehicles were to become common, would the grid be able to cope with people plugging them into their home chargers? This relates to the first question in the context of the demand that would place on the grid. Has EirGrid done anything in respect of micro-grids. We have a national grid - and I can see the logic in that - but are there plans to develop micro-grids whereby it would make sense to generate and use the power within a particular area?

I have a number of questions on baseload and dispatchable power. Much of our sources of energy will be from intermittent generation, such as wind and solar energy. There is a real concern in terms of wind-down and start-up costs for power plants and the cost of the grid overheating or then not having enough supply. Has EirGrid plans in place to use other sources such as biogas and hydroelectric generation to meet the greater demand from a growing population? I acknowledge that hydro-generation provided all the electricity we ever needed in the 1920s. However, it is not the 1920s and Ardnacrusha no longer does what it used to do. We have a large number of small sources of hydropower that have the potential to be used and again this is a source of power that is underdeveloped in this country, which would add to the baseload to ensure a secure source of power when wind and sun are not there.