Mr. Conall Bolger:

Shaping Ireland’s Electricity Future made an assumption that there is one way to get to the decarbonisation answer. It said that there was just one scenario. Yet, there are many different paths to get there. This could be by different relative blends of different technologies. Also, technologies are moving so fast that what is state of the art today will not be state of the art in five years.

I would have expected to see Shaping Ireland’s Electricity Future look at a range of scenarios. Then we would start putting in place the pieces of infrastructure that are common across most of those scenarios. We would start working from there. The plan’s focus on 2030 is not the right focus. It needs to take account of getting to 2030. It needs to take account of carbon budgets. However, ultimately, we are trying to decarbonise the electricity system. We are trying to take carbon out of the power supply. We therefore have to have a longer-term plan for zero carbon. The year of 2030 is just a point in the road. Where do we go after that? How quickly can we take the other 20% out of the power system? The plan needs to be structured more around those pathways to full decarbonisation, while also keeping us in line with our carbon budgets and with the renewable energy target.