Mr. Fintan Slye:

The Grid Link project was initiated as part of the Grid 25 programme in 2008 where we were seeing high levels of actual demand and continuing levels of demand growth over the forthcoming period. As I mentioned earlier, while the economy turned dramatically, the energy demand piece did not turn as rapidly. In terms of the Grid Link project, as we do with all projects we review them before we move them to the next stage. We continually do that. When we did that with the Grid Link project as part of the overall review of Grid 25 and the detailed assessment of overhead and underground options, this new technology option became a viable option that was identified at that time. It was not identified earlier because of the higher demand levels and higher demand growth rates.

It is appropriate that we continue to review projects at stage gates as they go forward to make sure that where there are new options, we identify them. We were open about identifying this back in March. When we published our draft review of the strategy we included this in it because we had done that, and we continued to do the detailed design and assessment of it through the rest of the year, such that we could do that full assessment of the option. However, we felt that to mitigate the issue the Deputy mentioned about the suddenness of it coming out, and given that we had identified it as a strategic option back in March, we should be open and transparent about that and get communities' feedback on that as part of the wider grid development strategy. That led us to a point where, in September, we had done that detailed comparison of the options against the criteria of environmental, technical and economic considerations. We try to manage it in that way and be systematic about the way we review projects to make sure that we are only bringing forward those projects that are appropriate, and that we continue to assess them to make sure they are appropriate. That is how that evolved, and to some extent that is the reasoning behind including it as a strategic option in the March publication. We wanted to get communities' view on it and get that engagement on it before we even got to a point where we had all the detailed work done on it.

The Deputy asked us to explain how the regional option works. I will try to do that and then hand over to Mr. Norton, who knows much more about this than I do, although he can jump in if I am not making sense.