Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Mr. O'Shea fully. The great job EirGrid has done can and will be matched by the amazing job the ESB is about to do by being one of the leading distribution companies in the world in managing this. What Mr. Stewart said is true: we have an economic opportunity. It is all about digital. By setting such a high target and by doing this, Ireland would pretty much be the leading country in the world. We would do the learning by doing. This would be of great benefit to Ireland in the right ways.

I want to return to the question I put to Dr. Ryan regarding the distribution system. Electric vehicles will take off like a rocket in the next few years. There are two charging points outside Leinster House but they are full. They have only been there a few months. There will have to be ten times that number of charging points in our car park. If one came in today to get access to a charging point in the Oireachtas car park, one could not do so. I am not an expert or an engineer but I have the technical query on the current the distribution system. Let us consider a row of terraced houses. I have a heating pump in my house and I will be getting an electric vehicle charging point. If my neighbours do the same, managing that at a local level will not be a small matter.

Managing that at the local level is difficult for the existing distribution system. It requires a complete reorientation of how we do it. Much of it involves sending signals to switch things on and off to avoid charging all four cars at the one time, or running all four e-pumps at the one time. Perhaps battery storage could be used in all those houses. If that is where it is going - and it seems that it is - the existence of rooftop solar panels on those houses would be of major benefit to the distribution network. It should not be seen as the power market being taken away from the distribution network or as neighbours being undermined. Far from it, it is an integral part of the solution any good distribution company would employ. Rooftop solar is a very good friend to such companies in completing the incredible task we have ahead. Does Mr. O'Shea agree with that?