Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

While I am waiting for other members to indicate to speak, I might ask a few questions. I was very interested in Mr. Lynott's comments about data centres and how the increased number of data centres might actually help as we become more ambitious in renewable energy penetration across our grid. Could Mr. Lynott elaborate on that? I am interested in the geographic distribution of data centres. Does that help?

I was very glad to see hydrogen touched on in the association's report. We put ambitious language on hydrogen into the programme for Government. It is quite interesting to see in the past few months in particular a big move globally as well as in Ireland. There are some very significant moves towards developing the hydrogen economy. The Minister for Foreign Affairs was down in Cork this morning looking at the planning of an electrolyser project down there. It is very exciting. The witnesses mentioned earlier that no sooner is a report published than it becomes out of date. I am interested in the association's modelling around hydrogen. It seems as though the technological challenge is not there so much and it is very much becoming a regulatory and economic one as opposed to a technical one.

The witnesses mentioned storage and the need for it in 2030 in terms of battery technology on the grid. I am interested in microstorage and the potential for electric vehicles as we significantly increase the number of electric vehicles in our transport fleet in order that these can provide the storage and essentially the buffer for those periods of fluctuating renewable generation. Could Mr. Lynott speak to that? Is it a realistic prospect that our private vehicle fleet could essentially bolster and support greatly increased renewable energy generation?

A German term was used in the report provided. I think it was kalte Dunkelflaute. My German is not so good so I hope I pronounced it correctly. It means the cold dark doldrums. The witnesses were referring to that time that occurs every year where the wind and solar generation are low but demand is high. I am quite interested in this. I am interested in the association's modelling around that. Could Mr. Lynott speak more to that modelling piece done by the association? Will we need particular generation just for those periods? Perhaps that is as much an economic question as it is a technical one.