Mr. David Connolly:

The energy mix on the district heating network in Denmark started with coal because that was cheap back in the 1970s at the time of the oil crisis. Then the green agenda came and it transitioned over to biomass. Then the sustainability of biomass became a concern and now we can see the growth of heat pumps, electric boilers and excess wind energy being used. No amount of regulations would have fixed the problem from last year because we were all at the end of a tap, the gas tap, which could not be rapidly fixed. However, if we had true district heating, which is not a small estate or individual apartment but an actual energy centre with 20 km of network at a single point in a city supplying it all, somebody rapidly taking out a gas boiler in an energy centre and rapidly putting in something else can be done in months to reduce heat costs. That is just one energy centre requiring one piece of equipment.

I often use this analogy. Have any of the members felt anything different coming out of their plug as Ireland has gone from zero to 40% wind power? The answer is "No". Everyone switches on the lights as they always did and has the fridge running the same. That is exactly what it is like for a district heating customer as Denmark has experienced in switching to various fuel supplies over the years because it is very simple thing to do. However - and it pains me to watch the news stories from last year - it is incredibly difficult to go into a building, take out a boiler and replace it with something else. That is a very invasive thing to have to do and is very difficult to do at scale.

It has been very saddening to see what has happened over the past year because we are very conscious that it frequently gets associated with the bigger picture of district heating. However, the ultimate solution to this needs to be not a small estate or an individual apartment block getting a solution. We need to provide cities and towns with access to that low-carbon waste heat and renewable heat sources in a central plant so that for the next crisis that comes along, we can then react rapidly to ensure we do not see those price escalations we witnessed in the past 12 months.