Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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It depends on what we are trying to use that stored energy for. If there is a catastrophic fault situation, we will pull down that supply very quickly because it will be absorbed while people are trying to get a plant back online. If there is a drop in renewables or solar drops off and we bring in Turlough Hill power station or whatever else, we will still need that storage.

There are different situations. What I find confusing is when we talk about having a two-hour duration. That two-hour duration may be gone in half an hour under certain circumstances or it may last for six hours under other circumstances. Where we have battery storage in place at the moment and we say there is a 1 GW on the island at the moment in battery storage plus 270 GW in Turlough Hill, that is approximately 1.25 GW in storage. As we approach 2030 and beyond and as we go to more renewables, that amount of storage is going to have to be increased as well. Are they directly related in that the more we come off fossil fuel on to renewables the more storage we are going to need?