Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 26 June 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

National Strategic Roadmap for the Digital Decade: Discussion

9:30 am

Ms Jean Carberry:

That is part of it but it is not the only problem. There are many issues that feed into the current problem, and one is that, through a confluence of things, including what has happened in Ukraine etc., we have a shortage of energy and the grid is constrained at this point in time. There is also a need to update the grid. Significant investment in the grid is needed so that electricity can go to places where the sustainable energy is coming. I have heard an analogy that it is like a road system. Pieces of the grid are like tertiary roads, but those tertiary roads happen to be going to where a lot of offshore wind will be coming. They need to be upgraded to highways.