Mr. Jim Gannon:

I will briefly take up one or two of Deputy Farrell's questions. I believe I will be able to close them out in a relatively short time.

In addition to the climate action plan, which articulates national policy, Ms MacEvilly mentioned earlier the price review process. This is where we determine, with the transmission system operator, EirGrid, and also with ESB Networks, the investment they need in order to meet again the national policy goals. In the recent price review, there was a huge focus not just on decarbonisation at the consumer scale and making sure consumers can participate in that through smart metering, smart services and low carbon transition, but also on the requirements EirGrid will have for investment over the next period. In the PR5 decision they were provided with a significant investment in investment potential, but also an ability to execute flexibility in that. The rapidity of change in decarbonisation and technologies that facilitate this means that what they believe is the best option now for technology and price may actually change during that period. There are new facilities within that price review that allow such flexibility to be executed.

The second piece that Dr. McGowan mentioned, which is quite important, relates to the three legs of the stool I mentioned, namely, the revenue from producing energy; the capacity revenue, which was stated; and the work stream on system services. The single electricity market, SEM, committee, the commission and our colleagues in the Utility Regulator in Northern Ireland are working on a new suite of system services to provide the incentives for existing and future generators to provide that other revenue stream. That is a bridging revenue stream where, as energy may come down capacity, and system services in particular, will come up as a new revenue stream. We will invite new technologies to help us meet that overarching target.

There was a brief question on interconnection. We anticipate that there will likely be further interconnection beyond the two interconnectors that are currently in the pipeline. There is certain interest in the market but there have been no formal applications to us in that regard. We also note that in recent months, the UK's Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, Ofgem, has been considering that further interconnection to Ireland is a possibility or likelihood.

Separately, looking much further down the line, there may come a point in time where exporting our energy through electrons via cables may be overtaken by a potential to export using green hydrogen in particular. There is a lot of investment in that regard, especially as we move a long way beyond what we need with offshore resources. We need to make sure the value proposition is there to continue investing and to turn the natural resource into an opportunity for national wealth. In the context of export, it is important to keep those on the line.