Dr. Liam Ryan:

There is definitely an opportunity around hydrogen from a flexibility onto the grid perspective. At times when we have an excess of generation over demand, hydrogen can be used for long-term storage. In reconstituting that back into conventional generators, it can offset the current fossil fuels they run on. It gives us double flexibility, which is something we need on the system. It gives us the long-term security of supply as well. It is very important we look at those.

The other item I will take the opportunity to mention in the context of the question that was posed is that we also need to be looking at this as a global solution where potentially we have some large global players who may be able to move their demand from one jurisdiction to another. Where we have a lot of renewables in Ireland at certain times of the day, that demand could be utilised during those times, and at other times, if there was high renewables in perhaps California or another jurisdiction, we might have low levels. It would be almost like a virtual interconnector over time. This is just thinking outside the box a bit and thinking of it as a global solution rather than just an Irish one.