Paul Daly (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for their opening statement. It explains everything we need to know, but I wish to go into it in a little more detail for my own information as much as anything else, given my ignorance of how an electrical network works when we talk about a two-way system. ESB Networks has the network structure in place to supply energy to every house in the country. How does that work when it is taking back energy? Does the network require significant modification or advancement? Let us say, for example, I had 40 acres of land somewhere in rural Ireland and decided to apply for planning permission for a solar farm.

I presume it is not as simple as the local councillors saying they have no issue with that. How does the ESB take off that power? How much more infrastructure is needed to do that? The witnesses have set out the number of applications the ESB has received for microgeneration or mini-generation projects. How many of those projects has it been able to facilitate and how many have been given the green light from the network infrastructure side?