Mr. Dara Lynott:

On demand, the 40% increase in demand comes from an EirGrid figure based on Government ambitions. Part of that demand is going to be moving from about 20,000 electric vehicles, EVs, right now to over 1 million such vehicles which will need to be charged and moving from 45,000 heat pumps right now to 750,000 heat pumps in 2030. As we move from petrol as a primary energy fuel to electricity, our electricity consumption goes up but our petrol goes down. Consequently, it is not just demand for demand's sake, it is substituting heavy fossil fuel - kerosene in our heating tanks and petrol in our cars - over to electricity and then that electricity progressively decarbonising. What our study said is that it is going to be a challenge but 70% renewables by 2030 is very doable, so that is very important. Energy efficiency is in itself very important because this is not so much about growing the total energy pie but about growing the electricity portion of the energy pie, albeit with the pie getting reduced. For example, in the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, energy statistics, electricity takes up about 30% of the total energy used in Ireland, transport 35% and heat 33%, so of the total energy used in Ireland only 30% of that is used by electricity. Therefore what is being done by growing the 40% demand in electricity is that the 30% is going to grow but heat and transport are going to shrink and the overall total pie, the idea is it must shrink in terms of energy efficiency.

On public to public partnerships, what the public service is doing on energy efficiency is very important and there are some significant targets that one of the biggest landowners in the State, namely, the State itself, must achieve and in achieving that through green procurement and through all the other things, it will bring in a lot more service providers, a lot more expertise and a lot more personnel, which are then available to the private sector where energy efficiency is concerned. Indeed, our own energy obligations supply scheme, in which our members are involved, has achieved incredible amounts of energy efficiency. Thus the demand for electricity should not be seen in isolation, it is growing at a time when the total primary energy must reduce and the public partnerships are involved there.

On the demand, obviously the data centres are there for an economic reason, they provide a lot of backup to other sectors of the economy and as they are a highly important part of the ecosystem of the information technology economy that is in Ireland. I believe the IDA has a strategy on data centres and has made statements about their importance. Again, earlier on in the discussion I talked about how, because such centres have an always-on requirement, they must have a backup requirement. There are possibilities the backup they have can provide system services both for storage that may available to other parts of the system but also with waste heat. In north Dublin I think we have seen examples where the waste heat of a data centre is being utilised to provided heat for residences, which will in itself reduce the amount that is there.

On storage we mentioned two storage modes, namely, pumped water in the Silvermines, County Tipperary, which is a potential solution and then pumped air in Islandmagee, County Antrim, which is another. Again, they are the types of long-term storage that will be needed. On the research that is there, obviously Ireland has been very successful with projects of common interest for large projects like this, in public funding terms. Indeed, the Celtic interconnector was a recipient of significant amounts under the public projects of common interest. There is a significant amount of research available through the European research funding for renewable heat projects and the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, does a lot of research on climate and on that area as well. I am not sure if I have covered everything the Senator indicated. If I missed anything she might repeat the question.