Mr. John Melvin:

Under the national emergency security framework, the public sector is being asked to take the lead in many of the responses, and peak reduction is one of the key responses. Also, in the regulation currently making its way through the European Commission formation process, one of the proposals is to seek to procure demand reduction from entities. For example, a university hospital may participate in this and, if it were to win the competition, would be paid for the reduction it provides at peak times. There is a desire for the public sector to take a lead in this and, assuming that regulation makes its way into law, an outcome of that would be a proposal or mechanism whereby people would compete to provide reductions. That could provide the revenues necessary for, in the case the Deputy described, battery storage.

In terms of security of supply, hospitals tend to have backup generation on site. I engaged with HSE representatives last week. They also tend to have backup batteries on sensitive equipment to protect it from voltage surges. Rather than for the purposes the Deputy described, it is for continuity purposes and protection of the equipment.