Mr. Declan Daly:

Reference was made to the natural electrical load curve over the course of a day. Regarding the deep retrofit, we engage in a lot of energy monitoring of the systems. We work with Electric Ireland, the ESB and Limerick Institute of Technology as a research institute. Smart systems and programmes are designed to tell heat pumps not to come on at 6 p.m., when everyone is going home to cook his or her dinner. Because one's house is well insulated, the heat load comes down drastically. One programmes the system to come on at noon or 2 p.m. when everyone is at work. One programmes the heating system to tell it not to come on during the peak periods; one preheats one's house by telling the system to come on in the evening. As a heat pump is designed to be always on, the peak usage will be taken out of the grid once we install more heat pumps in the system. In addition, research has been carried out into a smart tariff, whereby people are incentivised by being charged a higher rate after 6 p.m., but in the middle of the day it drops to perhaps 8 cent instead of 18 cent. The research is at a micro level, but such a tariff could be rolled out in the future.