Mr. John Fitzgerald:

The 22 GW was an exercise carried out by WindEurope. It is not our figure, it is a figure it gave us based on a European objective scenario for 2050. We could do more or less as we so decide. We have an abundant resource. The questions are how much we want to do, how we would do it at scale on the west coast and what methods we would use. We have a transmission system built for 4.5 million people. It is probably creaking at the seams with the amount of land-based renewables we are trying to put onto it. It does not have the capacity to accommodate 5 GW or 10 GW of energy in the European context. It just cannot do it even with the planned Celtic interconnector, which is a necessary piece of infrastructure.

Domestically it makes sense. It is not sized for Europe but sized for Ireland. It is 0.7 GW and we have talked about 20 GW so this will not work and, therefore, one needs dedicated networks. The good news is Europe needs dedicated networks because very quickly when one gets beyond 40 GW or 50 GW in the North Sea there is a dearth of capacity around the North Sea so Europe has a problem. We are an extreme of having an excess of renewables and a lack of connectivity. The problem is around Europe in its entirety so we need to develop better technology, to move that power, and dedicated networks.