Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:

I thank the committee for the invitation. I am managing director of ESB Networks. I am joined by my colleague, Mr. Brian Brady, head of network resilience and climate adaptation. I welcome the opportunity to speak on the role of ESB Networks in enabling the delivery of the climate action plan targets. I will start by covering some key points. The role of ESB Networks is to design, build, own, operate and maintain the electricity distribution network and, as transmission asset owner, to design, build, own and maintain the onshore electricity transmission network, where we work in close co-operation with EirGrid as transmission system operator.

To meet the rapidly growing needs across all sectors the electricity network must undergo a transformative step change in development. Under price review 6, ESB Networks has proposed, together with EirGrid, for the onshore transmission system investment, a €13.4 billion capital investment programme for the period 2026 to 2030. Examples of key areas where ESB Networks is enabling progress in the climate action plan targets include the following: to date, 6,474 MW of utility scale renewable energy across 433 projects has been connected to the electricity grid; an additional 843 MW of renewables has been installed by over 147,000 mini-generators, micro- and small-scale generators and non-export generators. Based on current customer programmes, we expect to connect more than 900 MW of utility scale renewable generation in 2025 which, if delivered, would surpass the previous record of 688 MW set in 2022.

The continued delivery of capacity reinforcement projects to support the renewable connections to the networks is another key area of work. We have also installed 2 million smart meters, which support the national energy demand strategy. We enabled the connection of publicly accessible charging infrastructure of over 3,800 charge points throughout Ireland and also provided for infrastructure for the electrification of the bus fleet with projects completed in Athlone, Dublin and Limerick and in progress achieved in Cork city.

We are also working with the DART+ and the MetroLink projects, as well as future projects such as the Luas Cork project, to enable the electrification of public transport. We are continuing to connect A-rated new homes with heat pumps and electric vehicle, EV, charging capacity. The electrical design capacity for new houses is more than double that of pre-2020.

There are areas of focus to ensure continued momentum. There are large and accelerating demands on the electricity network driven by requirements for new housing, economic growth, large users connecting to the network and climate action plan targets. Approval of the investment set out in price review 6, PR 6, is a key enabler for this work. In advance of delivering these projects, ESB Networks is actively developing interim solutions, where possible, and is working closely with EirGrid to bring additional capacity online. Our publicly available network capacity heat map provides transparent, regularly updates and information to support customers to identify potential connection points with sufficient capacity. We are continuing to build our internal capability as well as significantly growing our contract partner resourcing.

Despite this, there are resource constraints in the energy sector, which we are actively managing in parallel with the increase in work volume. The lead time for key equipment has seen major increases since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. For example, we have seen some lead times double. For large electrical transformers, they are more than 24 months. The demand for this equipment across Europe, and globally, has dramatically increased as countries invest to support the decarbonisation of their networks to meet their climate change targets. We continue to work as part of the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment’s accelerating renewable electricity, ARE, task force, which was established under the Climate Action Plan 2023. The work of this task force is crucial to support the acceleration of renewable generation connections and delivery of the climate action plan targets.

ESB Networks is strongly committed to the delivery of the climate action plan targets. There has been very positive progress to date and we continue to scale up our delivery capability to transform the electricity network over the years ahead. We will be happy to take questions from members in due course.