Mr. John Mullins:

The Cathaoirleach raised a number of points about the consumer making a contribution or making a loss because of curtailment. Historically, consumers have paid significant PSO levies via their bills, as the committee is aware. As I understand it, the PSO levy for all renewables is zero. In fact, renewables are the cheapest form of electricity on the grid. What is being lost, therefore, is power that could lower the wholesale price of electricity. The bad news for the committee is that from the graphs I look at with my own business and internationally, I can see that the price of gas and carbon is going to keep wholesale prices elevated. The geopolitical situation we are in, unless we have solutions, is not helping. The view is that the wholesale price of electricity will be higher than any renewable source well past 2030. We are dealing with a period of elevated electricity costs. This is the reason why EnergyCloud is so relevant in the context and also in the context that we will bring on more renewable energy between now and 2030, with higher levels of curtailment.

The answer to the question on the PSO levy is that, fortunately, the customer is not now paying such a levy for renewables. We are seeing renewable energy operators directly engaging with industry in Ireland and doing bilateral deals rather than going into the auctions. There will be a lower amount of PSO levy equivalents coming onto the market as we move forward. That is not to disregard the renewable energy support schemes. They are working fine. I have commented publicly they that they have been administered properly and have worked. There is increasing competition because industry wants to meet its environmental, social and governance obligations and because data centres and the large food ingredients producers want to engage directly on contracts with renewable operators.

The Cathaoirleach is right about the north west, the south-west and Galway. There are transition constraints that ultimately also kick in as overpowering constraints. These add to the problem we have due to the fact that we have a limited level of transmission infrastructure in those areas to deal with the amount of power being generated. This will be exacerbated when we have roll-out of electric vehicle chargers and greater levels of distribution concentration. We will have batteries in homes that may help with this. They will primarily be used in conjunction with solar PV to feed battery chargers. This does not get away from the fact that we have 3 kW in 77% of homes throughout the country that act as a battery for curtailed energy, which is on the increase. Our priority order is to feed the people who need it most and work our way up to actually get us to the figure of 550,000.

I very much welcome the suggestions made by the Deputies and Senators to extend our focus to DEIS schools, sports clubs and so on. We will take this suggestion back to our board and we will write to the committee in response to this conversation. Hopefully, we can keep the dialogue between EnergyCloud and the committee going in the future.