Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the CRU officials for the presentation. I wish to turn to the longer-term opportunity that exists in renewable energy, particularly offshore, which suggests Ireland can become a significant net exporter of energy over time. I wish to explore the issue of how a platform for offshore renewable energy is funded and how that should happen. As I understand it, there is a belief now that the State should provide some platform services so new suppliers can plug into a State network instead of building many separate ones for each of them. How is that funded? Does that go back to PSO funding, such that there is a short-term pressure on prices to achieve a longer-term efficiency? How does that impact? If we do have an opportunity in the long term to become renewable exporters, are our consumers going to have to go through a short-term period where they are being squeezed because of this longer-term opportunity that will be uncertain until it is realised? I just want to explore that. As I understand it we are in the emissions trading scheme, ETS, and it is designed to encourage the most carbon-efficient generation and we could be very efficient in the long term with our renewable capacity, but that could be undermined if we are trying to fund it through short-term pressure on our own consumers.

The second issue I would like to explore is creating a platform for consumers more generally to manage their demand. Even though meters have been rolling out for quite some time the offer of actual services to allow people manage their demand more efficiently seems very slow in coming.

We are on the brink of a big switch in say, mobility, to shared mobility. Should the CRU be more active in putting out platforms that can create new markets such as shared mobility, which require fewer cars on the road, fewer parking spaces, less building of apartments with loads of underground car parking spaces and so on? Where is the commission on that? For consumers to be able to more actively manage their needs, this is an exciting prospect.