Professor Barry McMullin:

I do not see a connection between those two points. Maybe the Deputy could clarify it. From my point of view, curtailment is an issue. Curtailment represents an opportunity but at the moment, the right economic incentives are not in place to make that happen. We run auctions and contract-for-difference mechanisms to promote and prompt the development of new wind or solar electricity sources. We could run a contract-for-difference mechanism for the development of electrolysers to produce hydrogen as long as it comes exclusively from what would otherwise be curtailed energy. There are certainly policy measures that could be brought forward that would address that, and I would be very much in favour of those. In the context of today's discussion, private wires are the right solution to the wrong problem. They are a great solution to constraints on grid capacity where EirGrid can build out, or where ESB Networks is already building as fast as it can and you want to get extra effort into building network capacity, but they do nothing for decarbonisation in and of themselves.