Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 10 July 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment

ESB Networks: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. Paul Mulvaney:

We have had high leakage rates in the past. At the moment, we are at best international practice. We have looked to see what is good practice. We looked to the Electrical Networks Association, ENA, in the UK, where there about 20 different network operators. They have a voluntary reporting code under which the report to the local authorities. We noted their threshold levels for dealing with leakage and their targets. We have adopted the same targets as them, namely, 50 l per kilometre of cable per year. That would give us a target of 10 cu. m of leakage per year. We are on target for that now.