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

I thank Mr. Foley for his statement and for accelerating its delivery to leave more time for questions. I will now invite members to ask questions. If witnesses want to respond to a question that is not directly addressed to them, please indicate thus and I will bring them in. While the clerk to the committee is putting together the list of speakers, I will kick off the question and answer session.

We heard very interesting presentations from the two energy storage representative bodies and from the demand response association. I would like to tease out how these two sectors can work with each other. Do they pull against each other? I would like to think that they are complementary but perhaps the witnesses would address that question. I ask the DRAI representatives to comment on the capacity in the system, particularly the heavy-energy users such as data centres, which have significant battery storage and backup generation capacity. Is that capacity being utilised at the moment? If not, why not?

My next question is for EirGrid. I am constantly impressed by the company and what it achieves week in, week out, on our system. I have said it several times that it is the very best in the world and is not learning from anybody else. It is forging the way forward itself and other countries are learning from EirGrid. In terms of the challenge for 2030 and the domestic target of 80% of our electricity on an annual basis coming from renewables, questions are increasingly being asked regarding the bigger opportunity and role for Ireland in the pan-European electricity market. In my view, our interconnection development is very much for balancing purposes, to get us to that 80% instantaneously and on up to 100%, of course, so that we can buy power when we do not have renewable energy here and sell it when we have abundant renewable energy being generated. Are the right drivers there to develop further interconnection with Europe? I do not see it as EirGrid's role to do that but, at the same time, I do not see it as anybody else's role either. Is the State missing a really critical piece? It seems that further interconnection is required to take the renewable energy generation potential way beyond meeting our domestic needs.

I invite Mr. Phelan to respond first to the question on storage versus demand response.