Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 19 November 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy
Delivery Challenges in the Offshore Wind Sector: Discussion
2:00 am
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Apologies have been received from Deputy John Clendennen. The first item on the clár today is the engagement with witnesses on delivery challenges facing the offshore wind sector. This meeting will be the first of two public meetings on challenges facing the offshore wind sector. This was a key area that came up when we were putting our programme of work together for this year. A number of members of this committee highlighted this as a priority for them in the context of decarbonisation and building up renewables in the context of our climate action plan.
Today, we are meeting with industry representatives and practitioners. The second of those meetings will take place next Wednesday where we will meet with representatives from the industry regulators and the planning authority. This is the opportunity for witnesses to put issues on the table they want to raise in the context of challenges of delivery. We will then have a second stage where we will have those bodies in here and we can raise those issues as a committee.
I welcome the following witnesses to our meeting: from Wind Energy Ireland, Mr. Noel Cunniffe, CEO, and Mr. Justin Moran, director of external affairs; from RWE Renewables Ireland, Mr. Peter Lefroy, offshore development head, and Mr. Seán Grace, communications and stakeholder manager; from Statkraft Ireland, Ms Tina Raleigh, head of offshore wind; and from DP Energy Ireland, Mr. Adam Cronin, chief operating officer. They are all very welcome here today. I remind all those in attendance to ensure their mobile phones are on silent mode or switched off. Before I invite the witnesses to deliver their opening statements, I advise them of the following in relation to parliamentary privilege.
Witnesses and members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name, or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative they comply with any such direction.
In relation to the format of this meeting, I will invite witnesses in turn to make an opening statement to a maximum of five minutes. Once the opening statements have been delivered, I will call on the members of the committee in the order they indicate to me to put their questions. The committee operates a rota system. Each member has an initial five minutes to engage with our witnesses. It is important to note that the five minutes is for both questions and answers. Therefore, it is essential for members to put their questions succinctly and for witnesses to be succinct in their responses. When all members who have indicated have had their initial engagement, a second round will commence, time permitting, where each member will have up to three minutes for both questions and answers. Please note that the duration of this meeting is limited and the times must be strictly adhered to, so I ask everyone to be focused on their contributions.
I will now call on each organisation to deliver their opening statements as follows: Mr. Noel Cunniffe from Wind Energy Ireland will verbally deliver his opening statement. Others have actually submitted opening statements here, so we will take their opening statements as read because they have been submitted to the committee. Mr Cunniffe will speak first and we will then go straight into questions and issues.
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I thank the Cathaoirleach and members of the committee for the opportunity to appear before them today to represent the views of our more than 200 member companies. I am joined today by our director of external affairs, Mr. Justin Moran, and by industry colleagues Mr. Peter Lefroy and Mr. Seán Grace from RWE, Ms Tina Raleigh from Statkraft Ireland and Mr Adam Cronin from DP Energy. Our message today is simple: Ireland's offshore wind opportunity is real, enormous and urgent, but unless key barriers are addressed now, we risk falling short of our potential. Wind energy has already transformed our electricity system, but as we look beyond 2030, offshore wind must form a central pillar of Irish energy independence. It is essential for providing clean, affordable and secure renewable energy to our homes and businesses to build a resilient and electrified economy.
Let me begin with the positive. Ireland has some of the best offshore wind resources in Europe. We have cross-party support for the development of offshore renewables, something many other EU countries are unable to say, and it is not something we take lightly. Earlier this year, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, announced an unprecedented €3.5 billion investment in our electricity grid, building on an additional investment announced the year before. Although it is only recently established, our members are already seeing the impact of the cross-departmental drive from the Taoiseach's clearing house. The Maritime Area Regulatory Authority, MARA, is in place and the first designated maritime area plan, DMAP, has been produced. Our industry stands ready, our members are developing projects, the financing is available and the supply chain is gearing up.
However, the reality is we will fall short of our 2030 targets with projects more likely to connect in the early 2030s, putting at risk thousands of jobs, billions of euro of investment and condemning Irish consumers to dirtier and more expensive electricity.
I would respectfully ask the committee to focus on a number of specific issues that, if addressed, would significantly accelerate delivery of offshore wind in Ireland. Many of these are covered in more detail in our offshore wind action plan, which we published in May of this year and which would have been shared with members. Offshore wind projects are complex large-scale infrastructure developments. They require regulatory, environmental, community and maritime consenting work, which my colleague Ms Raleigh, who chairs our offshore consenting committee, will discuss in more detail later in the meeting. We continue to see substantial delays in the planning system and in working with State agencies to respond to the questions they have raised about the five live applications with An Coimisiún Pleanála at this time. As we said previously to this committee, without a well-resourced planning system, delivering projects is very difficult. Critical agencies like An Coimisiún Pleanála, MARA and, perhaps most critically, the National Parks and Wildlife Service need to be given the resources and the mandate to work with industry to ensure clear and timely decisions.
By the end of this month, the provisional results will be published for Ireland’s second offshore wind auction for the 900 MW Tonn Nua site off the coast of County Waterford. As welcome as this is, and we look forward to it with confidence, the reality is that once it has concluded, that is the end of our pipeline. We have no clarity as to when or if the other sites in the south coast designated maritime area plan, DMAP, will go forward for auction, whether the grid capacity will be available for them and how auctions could be structured. While we welcome both the plans for a national DMAP and the allocation of funding for this in budget 2026, the earliest we can expect to see new sites is the end of 2027. The committee should examine how the DMAP process is resourced and how the State will secure the pipeline of new sites and ensure that projects can get going without further delay.
Even if planning and consenting proceed, without the supporting infrastructure, the projects cannot connect. This means accelerating the reinforcement of the electricity grid. It is worth noting that had the grid link project, which was abandoned in the mid-2010s, been completed, the south east of Ireland would have a very strong electricity grid more than capable of accommodating large volumes of renewable power and growing industry in the region. Grid projects must be supported - a shared responsibility for the Government and the Opposition - and phase 1 projects enabled to connect to the transmission system.
We are also conscious that the Government will soon put out to consultation a new national ports policy. We are concerned that it may continue to prevent State investment in new port infrastructure for offshore renewable energy. We want to build Irish wind farms from Irish ports. Most of the funding for this infrastructure should come from the private sector, but we believe there will be a role for the State in investing to derisk private investment and to help attract it, as has happened in multiple ports across Europe. We would urge the committee to ensure the ports policy does not tie the hands of the State.
Offshore wind offers a transformational opportunity for coastal communities, indigenous supply chain growth and export-orientated manufacturing. However, that potential will only be realised if we align education, training and supply chain development and create a strategy to attract energy demand. We would like to see continued investment in the Skillnet Offshore Wind Academy, which is supporting workers to transition to our industry, and for the national DMAP to also be thought of as a national investment strategy. Investors want clean, affordable energy and if we wish to attract the next generation of superconductors and pharma, the next Intel and Hewlett-Packard, we should be trying to co-locate them with on and offshore wind energy.
The benefits of delivering offshore wind in Ireland are immense: clean, affordable electricity; enhanced energy security; and thousands of jobs and resilient, regional, economic growth. However, the next 18 to 24 months are critical. We look forward to working with the committee and the Government to deliver this future.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Cunniffe. His statement made reference to Ms Raleigh, who is going to discuss in more detail the offshore consenting. Does she want to say something about that now?
Ms Tina Raleigh:
Yes, that would be great. First, I would like to take the opportunity to thank members for allowing us this opportunity to come in and talk to them from an industry perspective about the challenges we are facing. Probably the easiest way for me to talk about it would be to give my own experience and the challenges we have faced.
I represent the North Irish Sea Array project, which is a 500 MW project off the coast of Dublin, Meath and Louth. We first started working on our environmental impact assessment report, EIAR, in 2019. We received then the route to market through the offshore renewable electricity support scheme, ORESS, contract in 2023 and also our maritime area consent in 2022. As a condition of that maritime area consent, we had to apply for our planning consent no later than June 2024, which is what we did, and we submitted a very large-scale application. We say it was over 10,000 pages, but there were closer to 12,000 pages in the application that went to what was then An Bord Pleanála and is now An Coimisiún Pleanála. We waited then to receive the next correspondence from the coimisiún, which would be a request for further information, RFI. We had anticipated during our pre-application engagement with the board that we would receive this pretty quickly. These projects are what we refer to as phase 1 projects. They are really important, setting the tone for the industry going forward. These are pioneering projects. We had anticipated that we would receive our planning consent with 12 months of having actually submitted our planning application. We had to wait over ten months to receive our request for further information, which is an extraordinarily long time. It could have been delivered sooner than that. We had assembled a really large team of experts who have worked in this area outside of Ireland. They have brought great experience to delivering a really robust application. We were, therefore, very surprised to have to wait ten months to get the RFI. It is substantial. It is over 47 pages of an RFI response. I have worked in this area for many years. We had never seen a response like this. We believe some of the requests within the RFI go beyond industry norms and best practice. As I referred to a moment ago, we have a team of experts who have delivered these projects successfully in other jurisdictions and while these are large, complex projects, they have been delivered successfully elsewhere.
We have until next August to respond to this RFI, but one of the real problems we have now is that we have no guarantee as to what happens next. We could submit our response, and there are a number of avenues for what could happen. We have no certainty on timelines because we could be asked for a second request for further information, we could go down the route of an oral hearing or it could be both. I have no idea, and I cannot confirm with my shareholders and my board, exactly when we are going to receive our consent. This uncertainty is causing us great difficulty in delivering our project.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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All the statements have been taken as read unless anybody wants to add anything in particular before we start into questions.
The first speaker is Senator Noonan.
Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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Go raibh maith agat. I welcome our witnesses. I have a couple of questions. I will focus on the whole issue of judicial review and the statement from RWE, but also the comments made by Mr. Cunniffe in his opening statement and the delays in the planning system generally. The witnesses may have seen an article from Dr. Orla Kelleher in Irish Legal News in relation to the judicial review process perhaps being the end of the pipe of a planning system that should be front-loaded with meaningful public engagement at the outset of projects. It is a question I have spoken recently about to Dr. Brian Ó Gallachóir of University College Cork, UCC, and the previous issues EirGrid had with delivering the grid infrastructure whereby if we front-load the public participation part at the outset of projects, it reduces conflict and leads to meaningful engagement and an ironing-out of challenges and people's concerns about projects at an early stage.
I am putting this as a general question to whoever wishes to respond, noting the absolute imperative, given where we are with COP30 and the new revised targets at EU level to get to 90% emissions reductions by 2040. It is that idea of moving towards a much more participative model of planning where communities are engaged with in a very deep and meaningful way at the outset, not even just on a project-by-project basis but from planning authorities as well. I would welcome the witnesses' views on that.
Ms Tina Raleigh:
I am happy to come in on that. I thank the Senator. That was a great question. We would agree with more dialogue upfront and not only with the communities, which we did an awful lot of.
We had numerous community engagement events and got really good feedback. We evolve our design on the basis of a lot of feedback that we get from the community. It is more the statutory consultees, the feedback and engagement pre-application with those bodies that is critical. That is what we are not getting. A good example of that would be engagement with the National Parks and Wildlife Service. They do not have enough resources to engage meaningfully with the projects before we submit a planning application. If we had more opportunity to engage with them in that meaningful dialogue, it would have helped us and reduced the requests for further information that we had. They engage once we submit the planning application, which in my view is too late.
Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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I agree. In the last Administration we front-loaded the NPWS to try to meet those capacity needs. Even at that, I still think it is nowhere near where it needs to be in terms of resources. In my view, that organisation should be twice the size it currently is given these particular challenges as well.
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
Just to underline what Ms Raleigh has said, all of the projects and not just the RWE project have taken a huge amount of time and effort to engage with local communities and broader stakeholders. We have been out doing stakeholder engagement since 2018, since RWE has been involved in the project. We have done different phases, including face-to-face engagement. Through Covid we did online engagement to facilitate engagement when people were not able to leave their houses. We carry out general online and continuing engagement. The Senator referred to our opening statements, which touched on JR. He is right to highlight that the biggest challenge in the future will be judicial reviews to the main consenting applications. We have also seen a significant number of JRs against other consenting processes that we have to go through. We have had three separate JRs against survey licences, just for us to be able to go ahead and gather information to prepare the consenting application. I will not speak to the motivations that drove those. Certainly it is a combination of wanting to pick up on errors by some of the State agencies as well in their own internal processes. In some cases, there is an absence of clear policy on the interaction between other marine users and the offshore industry on these sites. As Ms Raleigh says, there is an overarching need to get tighter on the State side in terms of how we view the overall policy and regulatory landscape, how stakeholders are to interact with each other, and how marine users are to interact with each other. We cannot keep going around in this circle of fighting JRs and arguing over small technicalities when the overarching need is to deliver these projects for the benefit of the State.
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I will come in on a couple of general points. I think Ms Raleigh and Mr. Lefroy have covered things very well. The resource issue is going to be a consistent theme that members are going to hear from us over the next hour or two. There are State agencies like the NPWS that are critically in need of further resources. Senator Noonan is right that a lot was done in the last Government to try to improve that, but there is definitely still more that is required to be done in respect of other bodies like the Marine Institute, MARA and the CRU. Across grid and consenting, we are hearing consistently that State agencies are simply not resourced adequately to deal with the scale of what these project applications entail and these new processes that need to be created.
As has been recently reported, judicial review is simply built into the timelines for many renewable energy projects these days. It has become part and parcel that nearly every onshore wind project is judicially reviewed and challenged. We have seen some improvements through the Planning and Environment Court in terms of the timelines with which those JRs are processed. Unless we can do something to further mitigate that, it is simply a delay that we will have to anticipate into the project. The final thing I will mention is grid infrastructure. As was noted in my opening statement, there were numerous grid infrastructure projects in the last decade which were not progressed. In many situations that was a result of opposition, but also in some situations, as we discussed at length the last time we were in with the committee, political support was lacking for the projects. Just to reiterate, reinforcing Ireland's electricity grid is absolutely vital to our economic growth, to our decarbonisation and to ensuring we have more affordable energy bills. It needs to be a real focus for the Government and for the work of the committee.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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I detect a huge amount of frustration across the speakers with the pace of delivery. One Minister recently said that the response of the Government was that they had been sitting on their hands in relation to offshore. Has that changed? Has there been any extra step change? I am hearing from the witnesses that there are no guarantees, no certainties, no timelines and a lack of interorganisational delivery. There was reference to stakeholders, that there does not seem to be any talk. It is the same problems as we are seeing with onshore regular planning about the lack of resourcing, for example, of the courts. I think there are only three judges in the Planning and Environment Court. Is it a no-brainer or am I being too simplistic to say that the number of judges should at least be doubled so that these objections, or the apparent contradictions between the various strands of law, can be dealt with on a much quicker basis so that the projects can be accelerated? Would any of our guests like to elaborate on that? The sense of frustration seems to be palpable. Has there been any movement to resource the likes of MARA, the Marine Institute and the courts?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I will respond first and others can jump in after me. I thank the Deputy for the question. I think he is right; there has been a frustration with the lack of pace in getting certainty into our sector across planning, grid connections and future project pipeline. We do not have clarity on when we are going to get answers to these things. We do not know when projects will get planning. We do not know when they will be receiving contracts to be able to connect to our electricity grid. We do not know what our future pipeline will be beyond the Tonn Nua auction. There are good people working on this across State bodies and State agencies and they are doing their best but the reality is that in many situations, as we have said, they just simply do not have enough people or competence to be able to progress these projects at the speed that we need them to progress with. We have seen an improvement after the formation of the Taoiseach's clearing house. The first meeting of that was held in September and certainly we saw an increase in pace across a number of Departments and State agencies starting to address that. It has only been up and running for two months. We need to see what that looks like.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Is there anything happening with the courts?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
The timelines for judicial review for a typical onshore wind project, for example, would have been traditionally over two to three years. We have seen that reduced to about nine to 12 months over the past 18 months, maybe, since the Planning and Environment Court was set up. The Deputy is correct; there are only three judges in the Planning and Environment Court, so we would absolutely welcome further investment and resources in the court system there too.
Mr. Justin Moran:
Just very briefly, to add in support of Mr. Cunniffe's point there, the accelerating infrastructure task force set up by the Minister, Deputy Chambers, published an interim report. One of the things they identified was that in the first six months of 2025, there has been a 28.8% increase in the number of cases going to the Planning and Environment Court compared to 2024. That is indicative of the truth of the Deputy's point about the need to invest in the court.
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
I echo everything that Mr. Moran and Mr. Cunniffe have said. The first reference to an offshore wind target by the Irish Government was in the 2019 climate action plan. That set a target of 3.5 GW to be delivered by 2025. We are at 2025 and not only are we not in construction on anything, but we are not going to be in construction on anything until at least 2030 given the pace of things. To give credit to the State agencies where it is due, they have done a number of things well. They have done some big-ticket things pretty well and have come forward with new consenting legislation.
They came forward with the first ORESS auction. That was delivered in 2023. They are in progress on the regulatory environment for the offshore grid connection regime. They have not been sitting doing nothing. I would not say it is fair to say that they have been sitting on their hands.
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
I think they are being slightly harsh on themselves. I would characterise the approach as seeing offshore wind as an extension to onshore wind. The reality is that this is a different kettle of fish. This is a global, large industry that is as close to onshore wind as it is to nuclear. It is a different scale of industry, complexity and size of investment. There has been a lack of recognition of that complexity and the sheer amount of work that needs to be done to see these projects through. It is great that we have got into our first consenting stage and the projects are all submitted, but there are a million and one things, barriers and gates that these projects need to get through. The reality is that an awful lot of things are falling between the stools of different Departments. There is a lack of co-ordination. A number of other Departments have a key responsibility in facilitating offshore wind but they are not allocating resources to deal with that.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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Is it like there is no one in charge overall?
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
It is not that there is no one in charge. It is just that there are not people to do the work that needs to be done. It is a consequence of the fact that this is just not a priority of certain Departments. They have other priorities and the resources are not being allocated because it is not on their priority list.
Mr. Adam Cronin:
I just wanted to add something to that. Mr. Lefroy and Ms Raleigh, my colleagues here, represent phase 1 developers that are currently in the planning process. I represent a phase 2 or feature framework developer. We are fully supportive of them with the plight they have and what they are trying to achieve. We want to make sure that those issues do not become an issue for the roll-out of the 20 GW that the State wants to see delivered by 2040. We had a situation in March 2023 where there was a significant policy shift, where we went from developer led to plan led, because the State was taking over, in essence. The State was not ready. That is why we are having some of these issues. We would be fully supportive of the phase 1 developers in all the systems and processes being resourced accordingly so that we can move beyond just the 5 GW by 2030.
Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for being here. Something that stood out when Ms Raleigh spoke was the request for further information and that entire delay. When you go to the effort of putting a document together with 10,000 to 12,000 words and there are RFIs, there are issues with small planning applications, notwithstanding large planning applications here. Are there particular requests in those RFI documents that the witnesses might think are unreasonable or that they have actually covered in the environmental impact assessment?
Ms Tina Raleigh:
We would say that, yes, there are. As I said, we have amassed a team of people who have done this before. This is not their first rodeo. They have successfully delivered in other jurisdictions. They would be competent consultants and a competent team working on and producing these applications. There is much in the RFI that goes beyond industry best practice for requests. You will always aspect an RFI. There are aspects that people will have further queries on, which is to be expected, but it is the level that is requested that we feel goes above and beyond what is required. As I said, there were over 12,000 pages of assessments. It is a really good-quality, robust application. To see all those additional queries that really do not add to the assessment is the issue I have. They do not enhance what we have already produced.
Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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It might be beneficial for Wind Energy Ireland, where there are duplications in instances with RFIs, which I am sure the witnesses have seen plenty of, if this was raised with An Coimisiún Pleanála. It needs to be made aware of flaws and potential flaws in its processes. From Ms Raleigh's perspective, is there a single regulatory initiative that might speed up the process? I am thinking of statutory timelines, front-loaded scoping or mandatory completeness checks. Does she think anything along those lines would help to push things along a bit more quickly?
Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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On these delays and timelines, the witnesses' frustration is palpable. I do not expect any of the private companies to answer this question, but Wind Energy Ireland might help. On the commercial viability, we are relying massively on private industry, and with these delays, the witnesses have not seen a project come to fruition here yet. What is the commercial viability for many of these companies, or not specifically these companies but companies that are investing in our offshore wind in Ireland? Does it get to a stage where this does not make any sense any more and investors pull back, and we will not hit our wind energy targets because we are relying so much on private industry?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I think we need to rely on private industry for the scale of investment required. Delivering the phase 1 projects would require an investment of €20 billion across those five projects alone. That is not something that we can just stomach as a country. We need to be aware of the commercial realities of global offshore wind energy. The global offshore wind energy spectrum is that every country with a coastline is trying to develop offshore wind energy because it is a secure, safe, economical way of building.
Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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I understand that completely, but what I am getting at here is the commercial viability for private industry. When does it get to a stage where investors say that they have put in €50 million and they cannot see the end line and need to cut their losses? Are there companies looking at it from that perspective?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I do not envy the guys' jobs in trying to convince their European boards. The point I was trying to make is that Ireland is in competition with every other country in Europe for investment. Private companies have a limited pot of revenue. There are projects in the UK, other parts of Europe and Asia where we are competing directly for that investment. The thing that we need to do as a State is to derisk as much as possible, every single step along the way. That is consenting, as Ms Raleigh referenced, getting connections onto the electricity grid and giving certainty that the energy has customers. It is making sure that we have ports ready to build these projects and that there is a supply chain to build it. The environment is really challenging at the moment but we need to help ourselves.
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
There is no simple, straight answer to the Deputy's question. As Mr. Cunniffe is indicating, this comes down to the credibility of the Irish market as an investment environment. Notwithstanding that it is an extremely attractive environment in many ways, since we have a great resource, we are a euro-denominated country and so on, I would say there is increasing speculation about how real the Government targets are and whether there are the means to see all of these projects through on the timelines that they are talking about and in the manner they are talking about. As Mr. Cunniffe said, all of us as investor companies are looking at investments in many different countries. It is not straightforward. You make decisions for many different reasons, but there are starting to be question marks about how real this is and whether it will happen on time.
I want to go back to a couple of the Deputy's questions. He asked about ways to speed up the consenting process. You need statutory timelines and State agencies need to stick to that, but that only works if you have competent decisions coming out of it, because the alternative is that you hit the end of that statutory period and An Coimisiún Pleanála says it does not have enough information, cannot make decisions and it is a "No". That is a disaster and that is not an outcome that we want to see. You have to have statutory timelines, by all means, but you have to have the proper engagement from State agencies.
To go back to the Deputy's original question about the content of the RFIs, I completely agree with what Ms Raleigh has said. Yes, there are elements. Dublin Array is the only project that still has not got its RFI yet. We are still waiting, which is an extreme frustration for us. Based on what we have seen from the other RFIs, there are things in there that are unreasonable. There are also things in there that are a consequence of a lack of preparedness from the Government side. A number of things are being slopey-shouldered onto the developers to deal with because a Government Department or a State agency has not got its house in order, which is an extreme frustration. We have been involved in Dublin Array since 2018. It cannot have been a surprise to anybody that these applications were coming, yet we are dealing with and we are going to have to deal with issues of lack of co-ordination between State agencies and lack of co-ordination between Government Departments. All of that adds time and uncertainty.
To go back to the final question, the more uncertainty there is, the more there is a continued lack of clarity on how quickly these projects can deliver, which makes it so much more difficult for me to go to my board in Germany and tell it that this is a project we should be putting our money in. I want to be able to tell it not to put its money into a project in the UK or a project in Germany, and to put it in Ireland because Ireland is staking its reputation on that, but there is a dangerous that such advice may become totally uncredible.
Mr. Adam Cronin:
The answer to the Deputy's question is "Yes". From the investor confidence piece, it is a challenge all the time. We are a small Irish developer. We are reliant on our partner, which is an international developer investor, to stay here and believe it is worth staying here. We see uncertainty around the phase 1 projects, which in theory are fast-tracked. We see no line of sight and no certainty on the future. That is a major concern for all the investors.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The next speaker is Senator O'Donovan.
Noel O'Donovan (Fine Gael)
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I thank all the stakeholders for being here. Like other speakers, I can sense their frustration. I am sure all members here are frustrated by the process as well. When the witnesses were in here previously, that frustration was also evident.
I will start off with a positive. It is positive that the witnesses are here and that we are discussing the issues. It is timely that they have come in before the Department appears before the committee in our next session. I suppose that talking about this is a double-edged sword. We are highlighting the issues, but the investor confidence element is also being raised. Those who are looking in on this country and our processes are asking whether we are really taking it seriously.
I have it brought down to our ports, our electricity grid and our planning assessments. Deputy Ó Cearúil spoke about the frustration the witnesses are experiencing with the assessments. We are experiencing the same frustration on a day-to-day basis when it comes to one-off housing applications. It is frustrating that such a serious issue is also being encountered at this level in terms of our offshore development.
I welcome the clearing house that has been put in place because it shows that at the highest level the State and its organisations are taking the industry seriously. The clearing house has only been there since September, but will the witnesses give us an outline of what has been through it so far? What advancements have been made?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I thank the Senator for his questions. In July, a forum was held with the offshore wind industry, having been commissioned by the Taoiseach, to give the industry an opportunity to raise all of its general concerns and the details of those concerns across planning, grid, ports, supply chain and the route to market. We listed all the challenges our industry will need to overcome, not just for the phase 1 project but also for the projects that will come after that on our south coast and eventually on our west coast. In September, we honed in on a few of those items, particularly relating to the phase 1 projects. The predominant issues that were focused on were the consenting system, which we have talked about today; the grid connection timelines; engagement with State agencies on transport and on the planning side; and the lack of port capability in order to develop here in Ireland. On the back of that, meetings were arranged with multiple State agencies over the past two months. Work has been done between the meetings. The next meeting will take place in the second week of December. We are looking at a quarterly schedule that the Department of the Taoiseach is running. In total, eight Government Departments are involved in the clearing house.
Noel O'Donovan (Fine Gael)
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Does Mr. Cunniffe have confidence that this approach will bring some success to the issues that the industry is facing?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
It has definitely helped so far. As I mentioned, it has only been up and running for a couple of weeks in reality. We have seen a benefit to it. Going back to the point about investor confidence and how people are viewing Ireland, it has to be viewed as a positive that the head of the Government is taking such a distinct view of this and trying to address the problems. We have seen progress, but it needs to be played out for another while.
Noel O'Donovan (Fine Gael)
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To be the helpful to the committee, I wish to discuss some of the suggestions that the witnesses have made specifically. I welcome the overall document. In advance of our meeting with the industry or with the stakeholders, it might be helpful to be specific on some of the areas that the witnesses, individually or as a group, may want us to raise. We have heard that further information has been requested in 47 different areas. That is deeply frustrating. If there is best practice within the EU and other countries as to how plannings are assessed, I ask for that information to be shared with us. Is there a best practice in the EU among the countries that the witnesses deal with?
Ms Tina Raleigh:
There probably is not a guide on best practice. What it comes back to is the coimisiún having the proper resources to know what questions to ask at the RFI stage. They do not need to be PhD-style questions. Some of those who have come in appear to be asking questions that go above and beyond what is really required here. It is about having experience in the industry and the marine environment so that the right questions are asked. Again, that is a matter of resources. Having more meaningful upfront engagement with the coimisiún and the other State bodies will ensure that these applications can be scoped adequately at an earlier stage. That will help significantly.
Noel O'Donovan (Fine Gael)
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That is important for the clearing house as well. There is going to be an announcement on the ports policy shortly. Putting the parochial hat on, there is deep berthing within Bantry Bay. Will the witnesses comment on the potential of Bantry Bay in supporting the offshore industry?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I will briefly cover that. My colleague Mr. Lefroy wants to come in with a more general point. On the ports policy, we understand that consultation will be coming out soon on ports. At the moment, just one port on the island of Ireland - Belfast, which is a fantastic port - is capable of constructing an offshore wind farm. There is construction happening in the Port of Cork to create a second port that can build an offshore wind farm, but we need more. We simply cannot deliver all of these projects from two ports on the island of Ireland. Otherwise, we will need to go abroad and build from ports outside of the Irish jurisdiction. That would be a massive loss in terms of economic growth, job opportunities and innovation in our country.
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
I thank the Senator for his question. There are couple of things to pick up on. I will work backwards. On Bantry Bay, it is a huge opportunity. On the port question, a significant amount of investment needs to happen in the port or combination of ports that we decide to proceed with. If that investment is to happen, we must have certainty that there is a pipeline that is going to deliver on time. Those ports need to build a business case for them to make that investment and do the upgrades that are required. It should not be just a one-off; they should have sustained business over the lifetime of the business plan. I completely agree with that, but it is all linked back to certainty on the pipeline of projects.
The Senator said he thought there might be a bit of reticence on our part to come here and speak. It is absolutely the opposite. We are working hard and engaging closely with the State to try to deal with this issue, and therefore we welcome forums like this. We are delighted to come in. If there was a sense that the State was sticking its head in the sand and saying that everything is okay, that would be a bigger problem. As far as we are concerned, the more we can air the issues and get them out there, the more we can highlight why these issues are a bigger problem and the quicker we can get on the route to a solution.
On the Senator's related question on the clearing house, we absolutely welcome the clearing house as an important step. It is welcome to have an escalation point on the cross-departmental side to deal with these issues. What is critical to the success or otherwise of the clearing house is not necessarily the quarterly meetings, but what actions happen between those meetings. If we get to a stage where we keep going to those meetings and talking about the same issues without solutions being presented or being delivered, it will have been a failure and we will be dead in the water.
Mr. Adam Cronin:
We know that the draft ports policy is due out. We are hopeful that it will include an element whereby there can be State investment in the ports.
Typically in Europe, ports are funded by a combination of state investment, EU funding and private funding. That is the model, so why would it not work for here? Specifically in relation to Bantry, as a phase 2 developer, we are looking at floating offshore projects, and Bantry is ideal for serving the south and west coasts. Some of the other ports on the east coast do not have sufficient depth to deal with floating offshore projects. For the future and the certainty piece, Bantry does really need to be part of the next policy.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Would Mr. Cunniffe like to come back in again briefly?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I will make one final additional comment. As well as the clearing house, it is important to acknowledge the work of the Government’s offshore wind delivery task force. This was established about two years ago. It is chaired by the Minister, Deputy O’Brien. We have seen some really significant progress made through the work of that task force over the past few years, particularly in items the Department controls directly. Where the clearing house comes in and its advantage is in the cross-departmental focus Mr. Lefroy referred to. Offshore wind energy may not be top of the agenda for some Departments perhaps and the clearing house focuses minds to try to increase its priority so we can move these projects along.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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I thank all our witnesses for coming in. They have talked about frustration. We share their frustration. It was interesting to note that other countries do not have a cross-party approach to this issue. We all agree we need to see offshore wind built and built yesterday, yet we still seem to be hitting huge roadblocks. There is absolutely no excuse for a lack of clarity on a process like Ms Raleigh outlined. There is also no excuse for delays or excessive RFIs from agencies. It strikes me that we are new to this and were late to the game in certain respects. Potentially, there was a lack of expertise and experience in our agencies, in An Coimisiún Pleanála, MARA, perhaps, and the National Parks and Wildlife Services. Do the witnesses feel this is being addressed? Have the agencies closed the knowledge and experience gaps?
Ms Tina Raleigh:
Yes, I believe the agencies are making strides towards closing the gap. Are we there yet? No, I do not think we are. I think we still have a step to go. From identifying the need for a resource, we all know it probably takes about 12 months before that resource is in-house, probably capable, trained up and all of that. We have been talking about this for a long time to various agencies and about resourcing up. I feel it has probably taken longer than it should have given all the notice we were sharing with all the bodies that this was required. I do feel we are seeing a difference. Going back to what some of my colleagues here said earlier, I totally agree there has been a step change, especially since the clearing house has come on board. I do feel that more resources are needed. We referred earlier to perhaps doubling the number of people in the National Parks and Wildlife Service. I totally agree. It is not only about getting more resources in but about getting in the correct resources, with that marine environment experience. This is what is really needed.
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I think the point is really well made that, because of the lack of experience of dealing with these types of projects before and the lack of engagement, which has already been referred to, prior to the project submitting planning, there was likely an approach taken, given the judicial system we have in front of us and what the projects could experience post planning, instead of really focused, specific and correct questions based on the content of the planning application, of deciding to ask everything because then at least agencies would be covered because of the risk of judicial review, which Senator Noonan also referred to. In time, as people become more experienced and State agencies become more experienced, we should see less of that. Certainly, however, the phase 1 projects have experienced it in great form so far.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Lessons are being learned in terms of the process. When we are looking now at the phase 2 projects coming through, are the witnesses confident there will be detailed early dialogue to allow them to make the best possible applications and to reduce the requests for further information?
Ms Tina Raleigh:
I believe the agencies will need to be mandated to have that early dialogue. Until they are fully resourced with the resources they will need, they will still have the phase 1 projects to deal with, we will quickly have a Tonn Nua project coming in hot on its heels and then, it is hoped, more projects following that. I think the agencies will have to be mandated to engage at an earlier phase and to scope out earlier those environmental assessments required.
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
I do not dispute anything that has been said. I think we have seen change in some areas. I would say there are other areas and other State agencies in which we have seen no progress and a continuing lack of engagement. We have not talked about the grid that much yet, but if we take the CRU as an example, the number of people dedicated to the area of offshore grid regulation is probably about two to four people, or something like that. If we take Ofgem, the equivalent in the UK, as a comparison, it has probably got ten or 12 times that resourcing in a market in which it has been doing offshore wind for 20 to 25 years. It has got an established regime, and it still needs that resourcing to keep things going. We are in a position where we are still developing a regulatory regime. As Ms Raleigh said, it is not just about getting bodies in place. It is about competent bodies who understand what they have to do. As I said, this is a very complex area, not just environmentally but in terms of grid regulation, route-to-market regulation and so on. We are just not moving at a quick enough pace and getting resources into those agencies to deliver.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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In terms of us moving quickly, what were the expected timelines versus what it has transpired to be for getting this process through? In terms of talking about judicial review, JR, how much did that impact on it or is it going to potentially impact on it versus the rest of the process? I would be interested in hearing about this. Sometimes, JR is seen as a bit of a bogeyman and maybe there is more that our agencies should be doing in terms of being resourced and being able to deal with these issues more quickly than just complaining about JRs afterwards. My question is on the expected timelines versus what they have now transpired to be.
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I might give a very generic response and then let Ms Raleigh and Mr. Lefroy respond with their actual experiences. The Government in 2021, I believe it was, set a 5 GW target for 2030 for offshore wind energy. That was a very deliverable target at that time. Now we are sitting here in 2025 and most likely that 5 GW target will not be met until 2035 at the earliest. The timelines for everything have been extended dramatically. We have not even got to the JR part of it yet.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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When did RWE first get involved?
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
It was 2018. The project has been going since about 1999, I would say, because we have had a regulatory hiatus in the meantime. Since then, I would say we have lost an awful lot of time in deciding what we have wanted to do. As I said, we have taken a very long time to do a lot of big things, like the maritime area planning Bill and so on and so forth. We are at the stage now where we are expecting projects to get in and into delivery mode when, as I said, there are still an awful lot of things that need to happen. We expect delays. We see it in other countries and every country has a problem in delivering these projects. They are big and complex. Certainly, we have lost an inordinate amount of time.
Ms Tina Raleigh:
It is a very similar situation with us. We had anticipated that we would have had our project built and spinning well before 2030. That is probably the best way I can say it. I have a number of programmes going back several years, and it changes quite regularly, but we anticipated that once we had submitted our planning application, we would actually have planning within 12 months. That has obviously changed quite significantly and dramatically.
I will raise one point on the JRs. I think some of the State bodies are so terrified of saying something wrong that will cause a JR that they have gone to the extreme of maybe not engaging enough because of that fear. To those agencies, I say embrace it. Let us just engage and get that dialogue going. If a JR happens, we will deal with that when it happens.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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On the specifics in Ms Raleigh's case, when did you apply and how long has it been now?
Ms Tina Raleigh:
I applied in June 2024, and then, ten months later, I got the RFI. I had anticipated we would get the RFI within about three months. The committee will think now that I was dreaming at that stage.
That was what we were always working towards and that is what we had anticipated in all our engagement.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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The witnesses, or a number of them, all have international operations. Based on their international experience, what is a reasonable benchmark in terms of getting through a consent process?
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Is 12 to 18 months a reasonable-----
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Is that from when an application is submitted?
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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There is presumably then months, years of engagement before that. What about the whole process?
Ms Tina Raleigh:
We started our actual application in 2019 when we started with our long lead environmental surveys, our bird and mammal surveys. There is a number of years of work that goes into getting assessments and baseline data so that this can be carried out. There would a similar length of time in these other jurisdictions during that engagement piece. It is just they get more out of the engagement. They can refine their assessments and their end product. They have kind of answered upfront the questions the agencies want to know.
Mark Duffy (Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Cunniffe, Mr. Moran, Mr. Lefroy, Mr. Grace, Ms Raleigh and Mr. Cronin for their contributions. I tuned in for their opening remarks online and obviously have detected a lot of frustration in terms of the experience of what they are trying to do. It is frustrating to hear on a multitude of levels, having gone from a country of a lack of economic activity to being in a position where we have such opportunity for prosperity for future generations to lead on projects like this when we speak so strongly in certain corners about the opportunities to decarbonise and a green and clean future. It must be frustrating for the witnesses, when the market tries to respond to make that happen, and to be a driving force for it, to then interact with State bodies that are grinding them down. I can only imagine the frustration there.
Ireland is one of many places around the world that is trying to do this, as has been outlined. We have a significant coastline but it is not, by the grand scheme of things, huge either. Is there an opportunity for us as a State, through the political attention that this has now, and hopefully through the clearing house and the opportunities that exist there now, to front-load all of those asks regarding where and what can be developed so that there is clarity for the private sector so that we can really scale up? Having a really ambitious plan would mean certainty for the private market, potentially legally binding, so that we could have it clear now where the market can respond to in ten and 20 years' time. Like anything, we need to build up momentum to create this industry. It cannot be about building up momentum short term to deliver one, two, three or four projects. Momentum needs to be built up so that we have a pipeline and a clear route to a substantial number of projects for the next number of decades. The message needs to be clear that these are going to built somewhere in the world. We have the opportunity to build them here so we can improve our own footprint from an environmental point of view but also for economic prosperity for the next generation. This can be such a positive thing for local authorities, for employment and for all of our education system to respond and align to it. Often, when the State gets out of the way - as long as there is regulation, which is important - and allows the private sector to get on with it within certain guidelines, things can accelerate very quickly. Is there a role, through public-private partnerships that are seen elsewhere, for the likes of the enabling works with ports, for example? I think it was in Rosslare where, because of Brexit, that port was enhanced very quickly. It is different but it is an example of something being delivered at speed because of a response to a need. I welcome the witnesses' thoughts on that initially.
On one final piece, we have a certain amount of weight here as a committee. Following on from this, when the asks are clearly communicated, we should write a letter to the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste communicating the sentiment of today's contributions to make sure we have the full support of the Government. There is nothing worse than a talking shop and a talking house, like Mr. Lefroy mentioned regarding quarterly meetings. I would like to know, as I am sure, the whole committee would, if things are breaking down and they are failing and the witnesses feel like they are wasting their time. We should come back to the committee, call it out and discuss it. There is no point in anyone wasting their time on this. We are in a position where there is strong political attention being given on a number of different significant projects that have a potential for the prosperity of the future of this country. We need to use that opportunity, in a controlled way. I welcome the witnesses' thoughts on that generally.
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I will come in at a high level and then let colleagues fill in some of the detail.
I thank Senator Duffy for his comments. There are three steps with which we are progressing projects right now and there are challenges with each of them. We have talked about the phase 1 projects and getting those five projects over the line. Consenting and grid are the main issues there. Those are the barriers we need to remove. After that, we have the phase 2 process and that could be split into two different streams. The first is the south coast DEMAP. This was the process that the Government did to identify four sites off our south coast to progress projects. To be fair, it was a really good process and is very robust. The first of those projects will be progressing to auction, with the winner announced next week. We will understand that then. However, after that auction is concluded, we do not know how to progress the following three sites because we do not know what the grid capacity in the region is to take additional power in the area. We should be looking at things like how to accelerate electricity grid development in the south east of the country, at co-locating new demand or foreign direct investment into the region and at what we can do in terms of education to build a supply chain in the industry in that particular area.
The third point is what comes after the south coast DEMAP. I will ask my colleague, Mr. Cronin, to go into more detail on this. This is the national DEMAP process to try to identify further sites right around the coast of Ireland, off the east coast, south coast and west coast. That process kicked off earlier this year and is due to be completed by the end of 2027. Until that process is complete and we know what those additional sites are, we will not be able to progress with anything. We completely agree with being able to line things up in the industry so that private industry, or State agencies, can come up to try to de-risk areas but until the end of 2027, assuming that is fully resourced, we will not have additional sites to be able to develop.
Mark Duffy (Fine Gael)
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Is that standard that it would take so long for that piece of work?
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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We will bring them in one by one.
Mr. Justin Moran:
I am very conscious of time so I will keep this brief. One thing to be thinking about in terms of identifying that long-term pipeline of projects is the enormous economic opportunity. I do not just mean in building wind farms; I mean in attracting new investment. People are looking for energy; they are looking for green energy. If this country wants to next generation of medtech, of pharma, of superconductors, where better to put it than where the offshore wind energy from the Dublin Array or from NISA or from where the projects that will be built further down the line will be coming onshore. It is a massive economic and industrial opportunity for the country.
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
I could not agree more with the Senator's sentiments at the start. Historically, what we have seen is that the State has seen energy policy as a bit of black box. As I describe it, the State opened the box every couple of years, had a bit of a fiddle and then put it back in the corner of the office. What we have missed, and what events like the war in Ukraine, Covid and so on have brought to the fore, is how fundamental energy policy is to our economic future. That is starting to come to the table in terms of our thinking, and in particular, on the role of offshore wind. As Mr. Moran has said, there is a huge opportunity here to bring new investment off the back of the capacity and the natural resources that we have, and that that investment is not just focused on the eastern seaboard but on the western seaboard as well. There is a huge economic opportunity for those western rural communities that have - let us face it - been eviscerated more or less for the history of the State. A lot of that power is out there. That infrastructure can be built out there. That energy user can be based out there. That means jobs and infrastructure investment and everything else in communities.
There are kids growing up in those communities now who have the prospect, if we get this right, of having a long-term, sustainable, well-paid job for their lifetime in the community in which they are from. We have to get this right. The Senator made one comment about the State getting out of the way and, to a great extent, I agree. One thing it cannot do, however, is not make a plan, which was sort of implicit in his comments. We have got to plan this out and it has got to be a plan that is more than just the lifetime of this Government. This has got to be a 20- or 30-year economic plan encompassing: what we are going to do; what we want to achieve; how we are going to go about doing it; and what all of the supporting policy areas in which we need to make progress are, such as infrastructure, business and enterprise policies, jobs, education and all of those things. If all of that does not happen, none of this will happen and we will be wasting our time trying to build all of these projects. We have got to make a long-term strategic plan that we plan out and then make sure all of the State's agencies and arms are focused on delivering that.
Mr. Adam Cronin:
I will add a little bit on that longer term piece. We have got three targets. We have the target of 5 GW by 2030, which my colleagues have been speaking about. We have got the 20 GW target by 2040. If 5 GW are not going to be delivered until, say, 2035, we are not going to deliver 15 GW in the following five years. That is not possible. Beyond that, there is a target of 37 GW by 2050. It is not spoken about as much anymore but it is still there. The Department of Climate, Environment and Energy is running a process for a national DMAP, which will look at designating the entire coastline, or all of the areas of the coastline where possible, in the context of the 20 GW target. That is slow. We are not going to see the outcome until December 2027 at the earliest. There is a lot to do in that so I understand why. One of my asks would have been to look at delivering that in stages rather than waiting for the entire country to be done.
The other part of that is that the other agencies need to be involved in that DMAP process. There is no point identifying areas of seabed for EirGrid to then step up to have a look at what it needs to do with its plan or what other agencies need to do. It needs to go across the board with all the agencies working together with at least that 20 GW target for the future, which will be focused on the south and west coast largely.
Ms Tina Raleigh:
I welcome the Senator’s comments and I fully echo and support everything that Mr. Cronin and Mr. Lefroy have said. We need phase 1 to be successful in order for the follow-up plan to work and come into place. These are pioneering projects and the supply chain and a lot of the global market is looking at these to see how they are going to develop. The focus is on them. If we get these right, the rest will naturally happen.
Mark Duffy (Fine Gael)
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When it comes to the ports, are public-private partnerships possible? I visited Killybegs Port where there were turbines just sitting in the port. It was mentioned that Belfast is the only suitable one to build. Is that the constraint? Why are turbines sitting in Killybegs, for example?
Mr. Justin Moran:
Those turbines at Killybegs are for an onshore project. Currently, Belfast is the only one. It is fantastic facility and plans have recently been announced to expand and develop it, so we are very confident we will be building offshore wind farms from Belfast Port. We will need other port infrastructure, however, if we are to deliver the volume of projects that we are looking to get over the line.
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
To facilitate offshore wind construction, a much bigger footprint is needed on the port side, that is, on the quay wall essentially because bigger laid out areas are needed. They are bigger components and there are more of them. Killybegs is too small. I know it well. It is just too small. There is no room to expand it. There is space in Belfast and other ports around the coast.
Mr. Justin Moran:
The Senator is talking about ports from a construction point of view, but we also need to think about the long-term benefits of the operations and maintenance of a port. Each one of these phase 1 projects will need an end base. Depending on size, that is between 60 and 100 jobs for the duration of that project. Construction is a two-, three- or four-year lifetime, but when in the long-term, the operations and maintenance bases in smaller ports, which could include Killybegs, are very beneficial.
Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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I thank the witnesses for attending. I apologise if this has been said previously but I tabled a parliamentary question on the issue of port infrastructure asking whether the Government, given the clear deficiencies in port capacity that threaten our ability to meet Ireland's offshore wind targets, will bring forward legislation amending the functions of the Irish Maritime Development Office to include a statutory mandate for planning, prioritising and funding offshore wind and port infrastructure. The witnesses touched on that there. When I asked that question in the Dáil Chamber, I was wrongly told that a Bill would be coming forward in that regard. They were actually referencing the wrong Bill. Would the witnesses be supportive of legislation that would amend that to make it much easier for them? As they know, there is €90 million for Cork port but as Mr. Lefroy mentioned, these OREs are huge and need a lot more capacity. Would they be forward in supporting such legislation?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I can come forward on that. We would need to see the exact specifics of it. The core legislative challenge is that the Government’s current national ports policy prohibits State investment in port facilities. As a result of that, it makes it very challenging for business cases to be developed for ports in the absence of a pipeline of offshore wind projects because of all of the uncertainties we have spoken about. We do not know when projects will be ready to utilise the ports. We have produced two reports over the past four years identifying specifically how investment in ports could be done and has been done by other states around Europe to prepare ports and have them ready for offshore wind energy. We will be happy to share that with members of the committee.
Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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I appreciate that. On this committee, we are all saying the same thing. If the witnesses read the minutes, I have said this about port infrastructure about ten times. What can we do as a committee to push this forward? Do we have to work together as a group on a Bill for legislation? If the witnesses had a magic wand to change that infrastructure, what would they do? It is difficult that the Minister cannot invest in ports when we see the climate targets. If they had a magic wand, what would they recommend? Would they like legislation to come through if it was controlled and protected it?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
An immediate thing is about to happen. The national ports policy is being consulted on in the coming weeks. We think it is important that the starting point for that consultation is that it does not tie the State's hands with a policy when it comes time for State investment in the ports. That opportunity must be there for the State, rather than having something that prohibits the Minister form making that choice at the right point in time. During that consultation period, it will be strongly welcomed if the committee could support a change in the national ports policy. It is something we will absolutely be advocating for.
Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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I 100% agree with Mr. Cunniffe. I apologise if this has been mentioned, but with regard to the private wires, I wish to ask the witnesses’ opinion on the current Government policy statement. Do they think it is enough? If there were another private wires similar to Denmark or Germany, would they be supportive of it if it could be used to tackle curtailment or for electrolysis for green hydrogen? Would they be supportive of that?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
We are aware that the private wires Bill will progress through the Dáil next year and it is something we will absolutely be participating in. We very much welcome private wires. It should be possible to develop and connect a project, be it onshore wind, solar, battery energy storage or offshore wind energy, utilising a private wire. That is not currently legal so that is the objective of the Bill next year.
All of the phase 1 projects will have connections onto the transmission system. The Tonn Nua project will have a direct connection onto the transmission system. Where private wires could be extremely useful for future offshore wind energy is in aiding some of those additional sites in the south coast DMAP or some of those sites on the national DMAP to be able to connect directly, be it a future pharmaceutical plant, a new industry or indeed green fuels as the Deputy has set out.
Mr. Justin Moran:
I am conscious that this is an area with which the Deputy is very familiar and is looking to bring forward legislation. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we talked earlier about how the CRU does not have the capacity to do the things now that we need the CRU to do, not just in offshore wind but more broadly than that. When private wires come in, that will be another regulatory requirement on the CRU to ensure that private wires are done in a way that is the best deal for the consumer and functions properly. It is important to give it the resources it needs to ensure that when the legislation happens, it is able to respond.
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
Industry is overwhelmingly in support of private wires. I have been around the renewables industry for 20 years and we have been talking about private wires for that whole time. It has taken this long to get to this point. It is a good example of the lethargy and the lack of strategic thinking. The point I wanted to make is that it is the one area in which, back to Senator Duffy's question and comments, the State can get involved in that strategic planning and thinking about tying in incoming investment from large energy users and centralising, or to a degree regionalising, investment in areas.
We need to ensure that there is grid connection, either directly to the generator or to the system, so that there is much more efficient design of use of power adjacent to where the power is being produced. It is absolutely fundamental for the future planning of our energy system.
Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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I really appreciate that and it is great to see the support for it. I hope that the new policy of private wires cannot be used as a greenwashing tactic as in for diesel generators. In relation to the need for private wires, I would like to ask is Statkraft aware of, or does it have data on how much energy it is losing on average, due to curtailment and due to the grid not having capacity? If so, is part of that because it has been waiting for grid connection or for the connection to some longer storage option? I know the company has a long-term energy storage battery in Offaly. Is an inability to create its own direct system holding the company back?
Ms Tina Raleigh:
I am probably not the person to give the Deputy a direct answer on that. We can come back to him with an answer to give him a direct response. To echo what everybody else has said here, we really would welcome the private wires legislation. It would take pressure off the grid system so we are fully supportive of it. We see, as everybody else has said, that co-locating energy usage beside these areas and private wires all knits together perfectly and it is the wider solution to our energy needs.
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
Regarding the comment on dispatch down, in general this is a major problem on the electricity grid. This is where we have renewable energy available and we are not utilising it, either because the demand is not there where we could create new customers and utilise it, or because the grid simply cannot transport the power. There are a number of solutions to that. Roughly between 10% and 15% of all wind generation is dispatched down over the course of the year. I know that the energy poverty charity, EnergyCloud, was in the housing committee yesterday. We are strong supporters of EnergyCloud. Its representatives confirmed that €2.7 million per day on average, is wasted in terms of dispatched down energy, so trying to find solutions for that is really important.
To pick up on a point my colleague, Mr. Moran, referenced regarding the CRU resourcing, we know there is a live resourcing ask from the CRU is in with the Government at the moment. We would strongly hope that the committee supports the need for more resourcing there. As we have referenced, the CRU is critical for private wires, offshore connections, hybrid policy, and a whole raft of different things that it is simply under-resourced to be able to deliver upon at the moment.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I am trying to pick up a few things in relation to what you have said, just to be clear. We will do a second round now shortly.
I suggest to Ms Raleigh that what I am hearing is that 12 to 18 months would be a reasonable timeframe for consenting on the basis that you do a lot of pre-consultation work up front with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, being involved and properly resourced, along with other agencies. This issue around the NPWS is a new one for me. That is not one I had heard of before so it is very useful to hear that. That is what I think you are saying.
Mr. Lefroy seems to be saying no to statutory timeframes because he is afraid that a poor decision will be made on the basis that it will be rushed or an agency will feel it does not have the skills. What I am hearing is that rather than having statutory timeframes, they should be resourced properly. Is that correct?
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Yes, that is fine. Thank you. In relation to the clarity on the pipeline, there is clarity around phase 1 and half of phase 2, but the issue seems to be beyond that in relation to the south-east DMAP and the DMAP for the country at large. Is that correct? If you had some level of clarity or some timeline, that would allow the industry to plan, finance, resource and scale up as necessary. Is that correct?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
Yes. For one of the sites out of the four in the south-coast DMAP, we know how that is being progressed to auction, and the auction is live at the moment. For the other three sites, we are unclear as to how and when they will be progressed because we do not know if there is grid capacity in the region.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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And beyond into a national DMAP which is not even available yet, so all of that is-----
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
On the Chair's point about the statutory engagement timelines, we are noticing with the implementation of RED III for onshore renewable projects, in particular, that when it comes to statutory timelines and even the Planning and Development Act 2024, the importance of pre-application engagement grows dramatically. We have to have that if statutory timelines are to be applied.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Okay, thank you. EirGrid has the offshore grid, does it not? Is the issue with the offshore grid to do with EirGrid, the CRU or both?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I can give a general overview of that. There are probably two separate issues on the grid. One is the connection of the projects to the grid. I might ask Mr. Lefroy to comment on a little bit further on the challenges that exist there. They are related to EirGrid and the CRU. Then there is the overall capacity of the grid to move the power around to homes and businesses. It is the responsibility of EirGrid and ESB Networks to be able to reinforce the grid. There are two distinct challenges - the grid connection and the grid capacity - and there are issues with both. If we do not fix grid capacity, there is a chance that we will not be able to utilise the power to the best benefit of Ireland and then we will lose out on economic growth opportunities. It costs consumers more for power, so reinforcing the grid is important. If we do not know how to connect these projects to the grid, it just creates a similar level of uncertainty for the projects. We are in a situation now where if the projects were to get planning tomorrow, they would not be able to obtain financing because they do not know how they are going to connect to the grid yet.
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
On the challenges with EirGrid, the first thing to say is that the phase 1 projects are being implemented in what is called a developer-led system. This means essentially that we have identified the sites. We went into an auction and secured a route to market for those sites. We are going to deliver the grid connection infrastructure for those projects. We will build it and then we will sell it back, essentially, at a price still to be determined to EirGrid, which will adopt that infrastructure and incorporate it into its operations. Since EirGrid was established, it has been operating as the transmission system operator, which essentially means it is responsible for designing and operating the system. Its mandate is to keep the lights on and keep the power flowing around the country. It makes whatever investments are required to do that. EirGrid takes a precautionary approach with zero risk, or as close to zero risk as possible. It is directly funded by the Exchequer to deliver grid connection through the various price review cycles. In 2022 the Government made a decision in parallel with that to make EirGrid the offshore transmission asset owner, which essentially is a different role from that of system operator. EirGrid actually owns those assets and it has them as a regulated asset base.
Very briefly, without going into the detail, what we are seeing at the moment in our engagement with EirGrid is a continuation. It is applying a system-operator approach to an asset ownership issue. When we are talking about the design and specification of the assets we are building to hand over to EirGrid, we are seeing an overspecification versus the industry standard across the globe. Bear in mind that this is an industry standard. An offshore substation platform in Germany is more or less the same as one in the UK or the United States. We are seeing an overdesign coming into the specifications from EirGrid. We are also seeing the commercial arrangements for us to hand those assets back being completely weighted in favour of EirGrid. All of the risk has been weighted on us as developers. It is putting what we see as massively unfair obligations on us. It is putting obligations to deliver warranties that we cannot procure from the supply chain.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Is EirGrid actually building anything itself?
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Not for phase 1?
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
No, not for phase 1. We will connect to the onshore substation, and we are doing everything downstream of that, so to speak. To go back to the commercial arrangements, we are being asked to procure or provide warranties that we cannot procure and we cannot back up against the market. We are being asked to live with warranties after we have handed the assets back. The arrangement is in a shape that we just cannot finance. We have to finance our projects and we have to finance the build of these assets. We are not going to be able to bank those because the obligations on us are way out of whack. Until this situation changes and we see a clarification of the policy and regulatory framework to mandate EirGrid to operate on an asset-owner basis on this topic, not as a system operator, we just do not have a deliverable grid connection regime at the moment.
Mr. Justin Moran:
As a very brief addition to that, which might inform committee members, the CRU has been looking into this challenge with regard to these contracts. Last month, I think, it published a report that can be found on the CRU's website that looked at what EirGrid is demanding and what response is coming from our projects. An independent expert was commissioned who came back on nearly every single count and found that what was being proposed or asked for by EirGrid was not suitable or acceptable and that what the projects were bringing forward was the correct approach. That is something the committee could look at further.
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I have another brief addition. That report is an example of where the CRU stepped in to play the referee in this process or to regulate. However, there are numerous other instances across connection agreements, legal contracts and asset transfers where the CRU has not had the capacity to be able to adequately step in and referee between the disputes. It goes back to the point that it needs resources to be able to adequately support the offshore wind sector.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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My final point in relation to what the witnesses have raised is on the ports. They seem to be saying there is a concern around ports in that it will need substantial investment infrastructure that in reality will have to be State money in respect of the business case for it. What I am hearing is that it is space rather than depth of water. I could be wrong or maybe it is both - the witnesses might clarify that. With regard to how many ports, Belfast is already in place and I think the witnesses said at least two others, ideally. They might comment on that.
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
Yes. There are three things the port would need. It would need space to lay the equipment. It needs water depth because some of the ships that will be constructing these wind farms are some of the biggest ships in the world. Then it needs strength in the pier walls because some of this equipment is extremely heavy and would be too heavy for the capacity of the existing ports. They are three components that are required. There are a number of ports around the island that have put their hands up, so to speak, and said they could do that and require investment of between €80 million and €200 million of a range to be able to do that.
Belfast Port, as we have mentioned, is the only port on the island that can currently do that. We need to remember that with Belfast Port, there is absolutely no guarantee it will be available for these projects when our projects are ready to go. There is a big pipeline of projects in development in Britain right now. Belfast Port is currently servicing a lot of those projects and has contracts to do so out to 2028. That has been announced publicly. We need ports in Ireland to be able to build these projects.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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I wish to pick up on some of the comments from earlier on. I will go back to the ports policy, which is about to come out. I think it was Mr. Cunniffe who had a phrase around him wanting to ensure that the ports policy does not tie the hands of the State. There was also a question that it may prevent State investment rather than encourage it. What exactly does Mr. Cunniffe mean by tying the hands of the State, or what should be recommended to happen in order to prevent that?
Mr. Justin Moran:
One thing it is important to make clear at the beginning is that the infrastructure needed for offshore renewable energy, ORE, in these ports will primarily be, and should be, financed by the private sector. It will be us who will be using this infrastructure so we should be paying for it, but to get that investment, we believe some State investment will be needed to derisk that private sector involvement. When a port comes forward with a business case and if there is an opportunity for the State to contribute to it, the national ports policy currently excludes any Exchequer or State funding or any investment in these ports. What we would like to see in the national ports policy is not some sort of obligation on the State to invest but not to tie its hands. If one of these ports comes forward and says it has a business case, private sector involvement, the pipeline of projects down the line and it can see this coming but needs a little bit to get started and a bit of State investment as a catalyst to move this forward, right now the ports policy prevents the State doing that. Let us change that to allow the State, when a credible business case is put forward - I am not saying people should get money without proving the business case - to make the decision, in its interest and that of the development of the economy, to make that investment.
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
If I may add to that, this is a question of timing. As Mr. Moran has said, it is for the private sector to ultimately fund the development of ports because we are the ones who are going to use it but until we have certainty on our project proceeding, we cannot put that money into the port or whatever piece of infrastructure it is. By the time we have the certainty, it is then too late to put that investment into the port and for that to be ready in time for us to use it in our construction process. As Mr. Moran said, what needs to happen is we need to have that pre-funding or at least that certainty provided to the ports so they can go ahead with their business plan and upgrade works so they are sitting there ready to go at the point in time where we are ready to mobilise.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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It is derisking, from Mr. Lefroy's point of view. From a geographical self-interest point of view, is Foynes well along there or is Fenit in the mix?
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
There are opportunities for pretty much every harbour and port in the country. As the guys have said, there are some better placed than others to do the large-scale construction work. There are others that will play a role as a sort of support construction port. There are others that will play a role in the operations phase. Certainly, Shannon-Foynes is strongly in the mix and in a lot of ways it is ideally placed to do that. Bantry has a lot of things going for it. Rosslare is well placed for the purposes of east coast projects. Each one has its own merits.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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There seem be to be parallels with public transport from 20 years ago where there was a pipeline of projects, expertise, supply chains and the market was there but that has fallen off to the side because there has not been a pipeline of projects. Getting back to capacity and the other sites, post the auction results and the Tonn Nua, which is forthcoming, are the other ones ready to go then?
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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The other auctions. Are they ready?
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
We have no clarity on the timeline. The Department of Climate, Environment and Energy is doing a consultation at the moment on its plans for how it would intend to auction the future sites. As we have already said, there is no clarity on how those sites would connect to the grid. If there is no connection to the grid, you do not have a way to get your power into the market. It is not clear how they are going to run the competitive process either, so we are still a way off those sites having clarity on how they will move forward.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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The capacity for grid onshore there is not in place.
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
EirGrid is currently working on a capacity study for the south-east region to be able to determine how much capacity it can take from the overall south coast designated maritime area plan, DMAP, and in what timeframe. Depending on the answer to that, both the timeframe and the overall capacity will determine how to progress those further three sites. We could go into an auction process immediately. One absolute no-brainer for the State to do is to carry out more surveys of those three sites, because the more information and data you have on those three sites, the further you can derisk it when you move into your next step, be that an auction or a competitive process for the seabed, which is what is done in other jurisdictions.
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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You would like those surveys to start straight away.
Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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I am conscious the Minister is out in Belém at the minute talking about the need to phase out fossil fuels. I am not sensing the urgency right now.
I will go back to the NPWS again and the issue around marine environment and planning moving over to the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment along with the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority, MARA, and the Marine Institute all being there. I think the NPWS is in the wrong place as well. That is a separate issue but it should be in the Department of the environment. We need to invite the National Parks and Wildlife Service here as well at the next session and delve a bit more into that early dialogue piece. That seems to be critically important. I know there are ongoing issues with a lot of State agencies regarding the slow pace of recruitment and filling places, specifically the skills that are needed.
On the point Mr. Cunniffe raised on data, we had the ObSERVE phase 1 and ObSERVE phase 2 programmes, which were really good. On the notion of sharing those data, there are a lot of data being gathered by different agencies and it is about making them open and shared for the sector to be able to avail of them to help with planning applications.
The witnesses might have a view on that.
The general scheme of the MPA Bill was brought to Cabinet last week. The Government has opted to go for an amendment to the Maritime Area Planning, MAP, Act. Do any of the witnesses have a view on that? We got to a point where the MPA legislation was almost completed under the last Government. Unfortunately, there were significant drafting problems with it. Does that put a further delay because of uncertainty in developing a network of MPAs across the country? I know we have completed two SPAs for the seas off Wexford and the east coast. Providing that certainty from the sectoral point of view about marine biodiversity and foraging seabirds and all of that information is vital to layer onto maps and provide the data the sector needs to get the work done.
Mr. Justin Moran:
I might come in first on the MPAs and Ms Raleigh might pick up the data sharing issue. We acknowledge the amount of work that went into it under the previous Government in the Senator's time there as Minister of State. We have always said we want the marine protected areas identified. We want them to be based on robust scientific evidence to do what they need to do, that is, protect our marine biodiversity, which is critically important. Our position has always been that we need stand-alone legislation to do that and it was the best way to move forward.
It is our understanding now the Government is moving to a different approach. We are not necessarily against that if that is a quicker way to get to the same result. That is the really important part. We want the same, high quality marine protected areas identified at the end. If this is a quicker and more efficient way to get to that, we would be very supportive of it but until we actually see the general scheme and the legislation, we must withhold a more detailed comment. I do not think there should be any doubt that getting those marine protected areas would be helpful. It would help us know where we should and also should not be building offshore wind energy infrastructure. The sooner we can move forward with that, the better.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Senator Duffy is next. My apologies Ms Raleigh. I have done it again, apologies.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Does Ms Raleigh want to come up and chair?
Ms Tina Raleigh:
Just to add to some of the points Mr. Moran made and from the developer point of view, it is all about certainty. It is about knowing where those MPAs are. I do not think ORE and MPAs are mutually exclusive. They can actually benefit each other, depending on the location, type and all of that. The sooner we know where they are and the sooner we get to see the legislation, the better. We really welcome that progress and that would be great.
On the question in relation to observed data, it is great data to have. It is excellent for feasibility level assessments. Obviously, each project will have to go to a more granular level and get more detailed information. That information should be shared. We have more than three years' worth of survey data carried out on our site alone. We carried out another 12 months of survey data over the north-west Irish Sea marine area. That information should absolutely be shared. I think it is something the Department is looking as well. A huge amount of data has been gathered, particularly along the east coast. There was some along the south coast before we went to a plan-led system. It really would be a missed opportunity if that data was not gathered somewhere and made available somehow for others to learn from. There are lots of State agencies out there that I am sure would be delighted to get their hands on it.
Mark Duffy (Fine Gael)
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To follow up on the dispatch down and the statistics there, especially in the north west where it could be up to nearly 20% or 25% of wasted energy. I have met with EnergyCloud and many of us have. Alan Wyley and the team are doing great work and it is good to acknowledge that as well. It is a good example of where sometimes, the community engagement side of things is lost where people on the ground in the area associate turbines with electricity and with their electricity bill. Sometimes, they do not see the change in the bill if they are in close proximity to it. This a journey we need all to be on together and bring local communities with us. If they can see a value and net gain for themselves, then there is much less resistance to projects and proposals.
My question is about an expansion of the energy cloud. More and more people will have solar panels. Beyond that, they will have battery storage when they have the means. Can dispatch down be broadened out to charge people's batteries at night time? Could it be similar to how EnergyCloud does it so more and more people, if they are encouraged to have solar and batteries in their house, can use the extra supply at certain times to buoy up the batteries? My second point is about EirGrid and the overspecification that Mr. Lefroy has outlined. Can we include that in a letter to the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and the Minister, Chair? We should call that out and ask for a more standardised approach that is acceptable Europe-wide already. We trip ourselves up all the time in terms of trying to find a local solution when there clearly is already a standardised, EU-recognised approach. We need to use what is already on the shelf to make sure we are not overcomplicating what is already a tricky market.
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I thank the Senator. We are huge supporters of EnergyCloud. I was actually a founding director of EnergyCloud and I was on the board for four years. It is brilliant to see the work Alan and the team are progressing. We see a massive benefit to reducing dispatch down and helping to use some of that energy to heat the homes of people in fuel poverty for free. It is a fantastic initiative.
On the expansion the Senator referenced and the questions as to whether we could use home batteries and charge cars, there absolutely are initiatives we could be doing to do that. At a domestic level, that would make a very small dent in the overall level of dispatch down. The quantity of energy we are talking about here is enough to power new businesses and store energy in utility-scale batteries and use it when we do not have renewable energy available to avoid the need to import power or burn fossil fuels to provide that power. There is a huge suite of solutions required. Some are absolutely at domestic level but a big win here would be to try to tie in dispatch down or new renewable energy into Ireland's overall economic growth strategy, as per the Senator's first point. How can we co-locate new industries in Mayo and in the north west, for example, with some of the projects that are there and are experiencing very high levels of dispatch down at the moment?
Mark Duffy (Fine Gael)
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What is the barrier to dispatch down at the moment?
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Mr. Moran wants to come in.
Mr. Justin Moran:
Mr Cunniffe touched on it but the last point I will make is if you are looking at these counties, it is about seeing this as a huge investment opportunity. Take Mayo, which I know is the Senator's home county. We should be looking at a demand and investment strategy for Mayo, hooked on Mayo's enormous clean energy opportunity and the clean energy it has right now. If people are looking to invest, why not go to where the power is affordable, where you can connect properties using a private wire and you can generate the jobs and investment Mr. Lefroy was talking about earlier.
In other countries, there have been pilot projects run where EV owners received EV charging for free. In some cases, they were paid for it - the EV owner charged their car and was getting paid because it was useful to the electricity grid at that time. That was a pilot project and I do not think we have tried that in Ireland but it has been tried in other countries.
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
Very quickly on the EnergyCloud piece, the other area is around storage heating and dealing with fuel poverty in parallel as well. There is an opportunity there for sure. On the point about the grid and EirGrid, to an extent, EirGrid's position has been a function of a lack of policy clarity from the Department on what its mandate actually is, the rules that should be applied and who should be taking what level of risk. It is not just a necessity to correct EirGrid's positions and get it back to a more reasonable position that is acceptable to the market. It is also about making sure that the Department fills that gap in terms of policy uncertainty so it is clearly setting out that mandate. As we have said, it should also clarify the role of the CRU in that and give it the mandate to go and police that, essentially.
EirGrid is there to do a job. The regulator needs to be enabled, both in terms of policy clarity and then resourced to be able to police them to make sure they are doing that. It should not just police EirGrid. It should police us to make sure we are holding up our end of the bargain as well.
Mark Duffy (Fine Gael)
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At the moment, what is the barrier to the market or the State for investing in battery storage for situations like Storm Éowyn, for example, where everything was cut out, whereby there would then be some back-up like that? Surely, it is financial viable to use what is being wasted currently. As 20% of energy from huge wind farms is being wasted, is there a financial barrier? Is there less focus on it?
Can there be community battery storage that art centres and local organisations and groups can avail of? What is the barrier to this at present?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
The barrier to it at the moment is that there is no commercial route to market for this type of storage. Ireland has done extremely well in short duration battery storage, which works on a 30-minute to a two-hour basis. What the Senator is referring to is what is called long duration energy storage, LDES. Two initiatives are being worked on, one by ESB Networks on the distribution system and one by EirGrid on the transmission system, for long duration energy storage that goes from four hours up to 100 hours. We are talking about multiday storage. This is where we need to get to in Ireland. The scale of opportunity we have all been talking about for offshore wind energy means there will be times when we have too much wind energy compared to the demand. We will need to store it and utilise it during other times. The competitions are beginning next year. There is a live consultation, which I think closes today, on EirGrid's long duration energy storage process. This is on where to locate it, how best to utilise it and what types of technology should be considered. Certainly in our view, the areas of the network where dispatch down is very high at present, in the west and north-west, is where we will see the largest benefits for locating this type of technology.
Mark Duffy (Fine Gael)
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What is stopping industry, such as Coca-Cola and Hollister in Ballina, Vantive in Castlebar or Allergan in Westport, building and trying to benefit from dispatch down at night through battery storage? They all have global net zero goals.
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
Until last week there was no way for a person or a company to utilise a battery in this way. The market rules changed last week to try to enable this, make revenue for it and utilise it to be able to access the cheaper level of electricity, so that people are not constantly paying the overall import charge of the battery energy storage. One thing is that the grid in that area is extremely constrained, not only for new generation but also for demand. Further investment in Mayo, such as the north Connacht project, is vital as is further investment beyond this.
Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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I thank the witnesses for everything. I agree with them on 95% of what they are saying. My first question is for Mr. Cunniffe. The €2.7 million we are losing through dispatch down and curtailment is very difficult for us as public representatives when we are knocking on doors, when Ireland has some of the highest electricity costs in Europe. I know this also affects him because he pays his own electricity bills. He is not exempt from it just because he works with Wind Energy Ireland. Does he think if we brought in LDES and private wires, and if we could fast-track, that this would have an impact on the cost per unit that we face? How much of a reduction does he think we could expect to see? I have another quick question after this.
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
Today we published our monthly energy report, which all of the committee members will have received in their inbox this morning. It shows that in October the average wholesale price on the days we had the most renewable energy available was €55 per MWh. On days when we did not have renewable energy available or could not utilise it, it was €123 per MWh. It is more than double the price on the days we cannot access or use the renewable energy. If we introduced measures such as LDES, private wires or all of these things, we could minimise dispatch down and grow the level of renewables on our grid, and this would bring price stability and more affordable energy bills. The thing that really catches us with energy bills is that we are still too reliant on imported fossil fuels and we cannot control the price of these. If we continue this level of exposure, we risk Ukraine-like price spikes once again, which will lead to higher electricity bills. With renewables, there will be stability. We know exactly the price of them and they are contracted for 20 years.
Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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I thank Mr. Cunniffe and I appreciate that. Regarding the community funds being given with the projects, we have to be realistic if we are going to hit these targets for wind energy. There is a huge lack of tradespeople in Ireland. We will have to bring in people to be welders and electricians because we do not have them at the moment for the housing crisis, let alone to have them building giant offshore renewable energy infrastructure. Are the witnesses or their companies willing to support training colleges, such as that in Coolock, or the universities? There needs to be a shift in the teaching of universities. We have a lack of tradesmen and tradeswomen. We will need a lot of welders to build this infrastructure. The companies are investing billions of euro in the economy. It would be great to see these investments stay, through giving people a trade they will have for the rest of their lives.
Ms Tina Raleigh:
I agree it would be great to see these jobs stay in Ireland. I have children and it would be great to see them benefit from these new jobs that are coming. We have had a look at the job creation that can happen between direct and indirect jobs. There are more than 1,000 jobs associated with our offshore project alone, not to mind when we put in all of the other projects that will happen. Yes, we do need more tradespeople and yes, they do need to be trained up. Ideally we would have expertise from abroad coming in and teaching us how to do that and then we can take the industry forward ourselves.
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
I completely agree with what Ms Raleigh has said and I agree with the sentiment. I am an engineer by background and we have an apprenticeship scheme in the country that has been taken apart over the past 20 years. People are not going into trades. We have an absolute skills dearth in the country. In terms of being able to service the industry in the long term, it is a big challenge but it is also a massive opportunity. It goes back to what I said earlier about being able to have tradespeople in the community looking at a wind farm and saying it is where they work and that they are proud to work on it.
Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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I agree and I also did engineering in college. Sadly, I did not go down the trades route and I would not be able to change policy.
Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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What about in Ireland?
Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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Is it something RWE would be willing to do in Ireland?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
In my opening statement I referenced that the Skillnet Offshore Wind Academy is critical in this and I will expand on this. The Skillnet Offshore Wind Academy is a new academy we created in partnership with Skillnet Ireland. It is a joint industry and Government venture. Through expertise, such as that of all the people we see here and our 200 member companies, we are working with universities around Ireland to design micro-credential courses to allow people to transition into the offshore wind energy, with skills development on electricity grid engineering, offshore planning, marine consenting, project management and mariner skills to move from the fishing industry or other maritime activities into supporting the development of offshore wind energy or doing surveying activities. We have rolled out ten or 12 micro-credential courses with universities all around Ireland this year. They have been designed by the companies we see before us today.
Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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I really appreciate that. In ten seconds, electricity prices were mentioned-----
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Mr. Lefroy wants to come back in.
Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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Will the Cathaoirleach let me back in?
Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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I appreciate that.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy has ten seconds.
Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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Mr. Cunniffe said electricity prices are set, which they are by gas at the moment. Without long duration energy storage and alternative ways of storing this energy and private wires, are we locking the Irish public into these high set electricity prices for the next decade? We all know this infrastructure will not be built for another five years. That is being modest and it could be seven or eight years. What does Mr. Cunniffe think we can do in the next 12 months to mitigate the high energy costs we face?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
The wholesale prices I referenced earlier make up approximately 30% to 40% of everybody's bills. The more renewable energy we get on the grid the better, even if we have that exposure to gas, which is something we will have for the next ten years. The more renewable energy that we can use on a constant basis from a portfolio of offshore wind, onshore wind and solar energy, the better. Each has its benefits and is better at certain times of the year. We need this portfolio. If we combined this with energy storage, we could easily get to having 80% or 90% of our year covered by renewable electricity, which will have this fixed low price. For the remaining 10% we will still have exposure to gas and gas prices, until we can grow long duration energy storage or have green fuels in the future to substitute it out.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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This has been a very sobering session for all of us. It is clear we are miles off reaching our 2030 targets.
From what Mr. Cronin has said, we are highly unlikely to reach our 2040 target, which is even more worrying. Businesses that have already been working on these projects for seven or eight years have not even got planning permission yet. There may be further delays after that. We then need to ensure that our ports are suitable to build these wind farms, that we have the right workforce to build them and that the grid infrastructure is in place. All of this has to happen yesterday.
My first question is when the witnesses realistically anticipate the first offshore wind farms coming on stream. Do they agree that we might only get the first 5 GW by 2035?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I can give a generic answer and then let the guys speak to the Deputy on behalf of their own projects. We think that getting the projects to construction by 2030 is what we should be aiming for. For all of the reasons we spoke about earlier, there are massive levels of uncertainty as to those exact timelines. Our goal is to work with the Government to try to get boats in the water and building for 2030.
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
As we said, we are in consent at the moment. We do not know when that consent process will close and finish. Once we get consent, the hard work will really start because we will then have to finalise the design, procure, get to financial close and then get into construction. The more uncertainty we are dealing with up to the point that we get consent, the less of that work we can do, the less we can get ahead and the longer the period between when we get consent and move into construction, and onwards into operation. At the moment, it looks like that uncertainty is going to be considerable and will continue for a very long time. Ultimately, consent is a binary decision. It is either a "Yes" or a "No". We would be cautious about how quickly these projects are going to be able to deliver. That is the short answer.
Ms Tina Raleigh:
On top of everything Mr. Lefroy has said, I will add the judicial review, JR, risk into the process. The JR risk may not only come on the consent application, as Mr. Lefroy said, but there are other licences we will have to get that could be challenged, which will further delay matters. We want to be in the water by 2030, but I cannot guarantee that with full certainty.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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I will pick up on something Mr. Cunniffe said earlier. He said that for projects such as these to be viable, we need new demand. I want to pick into that a little. My idea is that we are decarbonising existing demand and the new wind energy we create offshore is replacing existing demand that is being met by fossil fuels. I would like to understand Mr. Cunniffe's comment.
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
What I am trying to get across is the overall scale of our opportunity here in Ireland. We have one of the largest maritime areas in Europe and should be looking at that as a massive economic opportunity. First, let us decarbonise our existing demand. I could not agree more with the Deputy. Let us absolutely do that. Let us electrify as much of our society as possible and put a plug on every heating and transport source. That is what we should be doing. Very quickly, given the scale of the types of projects we are talking about, we will reach the point where our existing electricity demand is met by renewable energy. We need to be thinking on a ten- or 15-year scale and the opportunities there. We must ask how to introduce new industries here. We could export the power. Our view is that we would be better off creating something with that power, whether that is a product or manufacturing. We should create something that can add value, decarbonise other systems or create green fuels to help to take some of the fuel requirements for the shipping and aviation sectors and decarbonise them. We will very quickly reach our current demand.
Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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I will ask about a technical point relating to the grid and getting financing. Mr. Lefroy was talking about this. Does the grid need to be in place before we will be able to begin a project? Is it enough for the Government to say that by a certain date, we will have the grid in a particular state and that we will be able to onshore the energy at a certain point? How far progressed does that need to be before decisions can be made around financing and getting projects started?
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
There are two elements to the grid. One is the infrastructure that we deliver as part of our project. That happens in parallel with building the offshore wind farm. We finance all of that at the same time. We effectively deal with it as one project. It might have separate financing because that infrastructure gets disposed of back to EirGrid. The other piece the Deputy is talking about is the deep transmission works that are required to facilitate our connection. In some cases, we are connecting into an existing substation with an existing connection point. In other cases, a new connection point has to be built. In pretty well all cases, certainly for pretty well all of the phase 1 projects in and around Dublin, there are significant deep transmission works that need to be done. EirGrid is working on the greater Dublin project, which is probably four or five separate transmission projects in their own right, to facilitate that power.
We have been given a connection date to simplify this. We have been told that our connection is going to be ready at a certain point and it will be ready to take all of our power at that point. We are assuming that is the case and that EirGrid is doing all of that work to ensure it is the case. To an extent, that is a bit of a bet. At the point at which we finance the wind farm, we need to have the confidence that it is moving forward in the right way. Otherwise, we will not have the certainty to be able to move forward with our works.
Mr. Justin Moran:
I will briefly provide context for the onshore aspect. We have projects that have gone through the planning system, have full planning permission and are ready to go, but there is no grid so we are not building them. They cannot make the decision to move ahead on those projects until they know the grid is going to be there and reinforced. That is where the decision is made to go or to not go.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Does anyone have any closing comments? I ask Senator Higgins to go ahead quickly.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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Apologises for my absence, but another committee meeting is clashing with this one. I can see that a lot of the areas I would have focused on have been touched on already. I am sympathetic on the question of the grid. We know at least that greater resources are now being allocated for infrastructural development. I also have strong sympathy for the argument around resources, including the resources for the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Another area where resources have been mentioned as a gap is in respect of the idea of State or State-supported surveying. We know that one of the issues environmentally is multiple surveying of marine areas. Every company is having to do multiple checks. I know that some have encountered issues at the foreshore investigation level in that regard. One thing that has been talked about is the idea of pooling the information that is gathered in respect of the marine area and marine mapping. That could be used as a resource so that the information becomes the information for when there are information requests. That in itself could lessen the environmental toll and increase credibility and certainty. Perhaps the witnesses could comment on the idea of a pooled piece for marine mapping , investigations and so forth.
That could also go to some of the time-bound pieces. Realistically, we are talking about things like cetaceans, but there is work that can be done. This is where a huge opportunity was missed where the marine protection areas were not designated earlier and faster to allow us to know what we were trying to work around. The witnesses might comment on how useful it would have been to know where that was so they could plan accordingly. I would like a comment on that as another potential area of resourcing, as well as the resourcing of the courts. I will be honest that the delays in respect of judicial reviews relate to the decisions. I know of situations where there have been waits of a year and a half for decisions of the courts. I feel that targeting a part of democracy, namely, individuals taking judicial review cases, is the wrong target. They are crucial for how we develop better practices. They are important and are under attack and made an easy target when, in fact, a system that moves better will have fewer judicial reviews. Some 40% of judicial reviews are taken by developers, even though individuals are always pointed to. The focus is often on individuals rather than on asking why it takes 18 months to come up with what is often a simple decision. Why is there such a long wait, as has been mentioned, for requests for further information? There are those kinds of gaps.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Would Mr. Cunniffe like to come in?
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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I have a backlog of questions because I missed my first slot.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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If the Senator was here, I would have given her the slot.
Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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Of course. I have several other questions. I am interested in the planning and the resources but I would love to hear about the investment environment. Right now we know there is a very worrying pulling away from investment in renewables. We saw BP ditch its wind energy targets and place a focus on fossil fuels. We see a political push internationally - not in Ireland - on fossil fuels and liquified natural gas. This creates several issues, including an investment issue. It is also a very foolish decision for the EU taxonomy, which was meant to be the counterbalance that would push investment in green energy, and then gas was included. We have ended up at a point where we have not seen that special focus on renewable energy that we should have seen. This issue is placed alongside things like LNG getting a push.
Perhaps the witnesses have already elaborated in detail on ports but the concern is that we know port infrastructure needs to be developed and improved in the context of renewable energy. At the same time we know there is a push for very large-scale LNG projects to happen, for example, in Cork. Will the witnesses comment on the intersections between this new push on investment in fossil fuels, specifically on liquefied natural gas, and the potential vulnerabilities in terms of investment and infrastructure that will be needed for wind energy?
Mr. Noel Cunniffe:
I will try to cover each of the questions at a high level and then pass to some of my colleagues for more detailed comments, if they have anything to add. With regard to State support for surveying, I referenced earlier that that is something we strongly support if it derisks projects. The ongoing auction process happening this week with Tonn Nua has seen the benefit of the State releasing information from surveying that was carried out. This helps to derisk projects. Projects understand more what the seabed looks like and they understand their options for turbines and locations. Overall, it leads to a lower level of cost and risk for customers. This is very positive. It is very welcome that the Government allocated funding in this year's budget for further surveying activity to help support the south coast DMAP and the national DMAP. This is something we absolutely welcome. We very much support making publicly available as much of the information as possible so it can be used.
On the courts process, we referenced earlier that the Planning and Environment Court has been a positive step in reducing the timelines for judicial reviews. There are three judges there at present and it would be great to see more investment in it, not only in judges but in support staff. I am aware of a wind farm case that took three or four years between the hearing and the overall judgment on it being released.
With regard to the overall investment environment, globally, investment in renewable energy has become more challenging, particularly since developments in the US earlier in the year, when the US market cancelled a number of offshore wind energy projects. The result of this is a lower level of overall financing available globally for investment in offshore wind energy. As a result, Ireland needs to be at the top of our game to attract it. We need to make sure we give clarity to developers and that we derisk projects as much as we possibly can. We have seen a number of failed auctions in Europe this year, where countries did not get it right. We do not think this will happen in Ireland next week but let us wait and see. It does not seem like it will be the case. This is a sign that, as we spoke about earlier, there is a political commitment in government and in opposition to getting this done. This is not the same for every country in Europe. We have some of the best offshore wind resources in the world. Let us work to our strengths and make sure we are trying to derisk projects as much as possible.
We spoke at length about port investment earlier. To be honest, I do not have the competency to speak about LNG and what it might mean for port investment.
Mr. Peter Lefroy:
I can speak about the investment environment. Everything Mr. Cunniffe has said is correct. We have certainly seen a pulling back by certain countries from their investment in renewables. This has been reflected in the finance that has gone through. I do not necessarily think there is less finance available. If there are projects that are in a position to be invested in and the finance is available, one follows the other, so to speak.
RWE is an example. We have pulled out of number of markets globally because the investment environment has not been right. This can be a combination of a government changing its view on its targets or, in the case of the US, pulling back from a sector entirely. In cases in Europe, it has been the consequence of bad market design and a lack of credibility. We have touched on credibility a number of times today. This is an opportunity for Ireland. We have done a good job, notwithstanding all of the problems we have spoken about today. We have also attracted a lot of interest from the international community in delivering offshore wind. To an extent, we just have to stay the course and make sure we follow up on it and follow up on what we say we will do. As has been said, the environment is fragile. If we do not follow up on that and convince the market that we are serious about this, investment will disappear.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I propose that we publish on the committee's website all of the opening statements that have been supplied. Is that agreed? Agreed. On behalf of the committee I thank all of the witnesses for coming before us today and taking part in the session. It has been quite a good detailed session and it will be useful for us in the next stage when we have the other side of the house in to deal with some of these issues. We will now go into private session.