Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:

In the time available we will probably not get to deal with all of the Senator's questions but we are happy to follow up with information on batteries. If there is time, I will ask Mr. Brady to come in with the numbers in that regard.

To go back to the initial questions on what is happening with electricity demand in general, there is a difference between underlying electricity demand and peak demand. One of the things we have to do is design our systems and network to cater for peak demand. There has been an increase in peak demand. This is because of various drivers, such as the electrification of heat and transport, economic growth and large users. While underlying terawatt hours or volume of electricity have been reduced or kept stable by energy efficiency, peak demand is increasing. This is being seen throughout Europe, where we see a need to double grid investment to cater for the changes that are happening.

Senator Higgins mentioned Portlaoise as an example. I will speak about that specifically. There are areas of our network where there are constraints and where we are investing. Earlier, I mentioned that considerable investment will be coming in PR6 in respect of electricity substations, for example. On reinforcement of the distribution network, in PR5, which is the current price review, we are moving from investment of €500 million up to €2.6 billion. This is what we propose under PR6 for the next five years. This is to cater for the level of growth we are already seeing on that network.

Specifically on the development in Portlaoise, and I acknowledge there has been considerable uncertainty and stress for the families involved in the development, the developer involved applied to us in March 2024. There was a revised application last August to cater for a commercial unit the developer was putting in and for the updated demand relating to this. We issued a connection offer to the developer in May of this year. We looked at various other applicants in the area. As part of this, we identified that there had been an upgrade through two big transformers in Portlaoise to add capacity. I am glad to say the project to increase capacity is going well. After we made the offer to the developer in May, it signed up and a connection agreement was put in place. We visited the site in June and again this week. As soon as the developer is ready with its work we will get the connections.