Dáil debates

Tuesday, 3 December 2013

Electricity Infrastructure: Motion [Private Members]

 

7:55 pm

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity of speaking on this debate.

In the motion, we in Fianna Fáil propose that Dáil Éireann, "agrees that Ireland's electricity infrastructure and transmission capability be modernised, as well as expanded, to allow for a clean, sustainable and affordable supply to the public and to support all future economic and societal development." My party's motion goes on to call, "for an independent international assessment of the EirGrid proposals to take place, so that the health and visual concerns held by the public are fully addressed, the cost and placing underground of the transmission cables are fully examined and a report on these matters to be published by the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources." I am pleased the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, is here to hear this debate and I am sure he would agree with the general sentiments in the motion.

The reason we are here on this issue is to discuss the plans by EirGrid for its grid development over the next number of years. EirGrid is basing all its plans on its document Grid25, which was published in 2008. Grid25, lest people be confused, is not about meeting energy targets, renewable energy or generating electricity. Grid25 is about the grid transmission system for electricity across the island of Ireland. Some believe this is about matters such as wind energy, gas or coal. It is merely about the transmission system for electricity, from where it is produced in the power stations to where it is required, either in industry or in homes.

My essential difficulty here, as I discussed with the chief executive of EirGrid at one of the public meetings in Carlow two years ago, is why EirGrid is bringing all these pylons over the country, from areas where the electricity is being produced to where it is needed. In the interests of sustainable development, I asked would EirGrid seek to have the electricity produced closer to where it is required and it would not need to traverse the countryside with hundreds of kilometres of major pylons and 400 kV lines. I thought that was a most reasonable straightforward question. In reply, the chief executive stated he was prohibited by law from doing that and that his sole remit is to deal with transmission and, under the Competition Authority, he cannot engage with individual generating companies as to where they locate their generating capacity. I believe the separation of electricity generation from electricity distribution has led to a lack of proper integration in the production of electricity and its supply to homes. There were probably good reasons at the time to separate the two organisations but as time moves on this legal difficulty between the generators and the transmitters of electricity is causing a problem. On the east coast, in Dublin and the Leinster region generally, where a large proportion of the population resides, there is a need for more electricity generation. If that was the case, we would not need to bring power lines from the west and from Cork and every other region to the greater Dublin area where it is required. We must look at this in a more sustainable way and avoid the need for erecting all these pylons through the country.

There are different aspects to the grid project. The grid link project, which I have just mentioned, involves bringing electricity from the Cork region, up through Wexford and ending up somewhere in the north Kildare area close to the Dublin region where the electricity is required.

It is important to point out that there is no primary legislation backing up EirGrid. I asked the Taoiseach about this last week and he replied there are plans to publish primary legislation to deal with EirGrid in 2014. It is set up on the basis of a statutory instrument and as such it has no compulsory purchase order, CPO, powers. If a CPO is required, it must be done by the ESB on EirGrid's behalf. I ask the Minister to deal with primary legislation on this matter which, in itself, will provide a further opportunity to have a proper debate on EirGrid.

EirGrid approached this from the beginning on the basis that it is a question of pylons or nothing. The Ceann Comhairle does not like me showing documents in the House, but "The Grid Link Project", dealing with linking the Munster and Leinster areas, published in autumn 2013, as recently as the other day, describes the next steps. EirGrid is looking at various corridors and within that, it will see where is the most suitable area to go. It states:

Following this round of consultation, EirGrid will review and consider all feedback received from stakeholders [the company has now extended that to January] and identify the least constrained corridor and substation sites. The least constrained corridor will be the best option from a technical, environmental, community and economic perspective within which an overhead line can be routed.
Before EirGrid started this, it decided that this was a matter of pylons overground. There are pictures of pylons on the front, in the middle and at the end of its document. Before they ever started, they had a closed mind on this issue. Even if they ever get to lodge an application for planning, such planning will not stand up. It might stand up in An Bord Pleanála, but it certainly will not stand up in the courts because the company will not have considered all the options and it is essential in modern planning that one does so before coming forward with a planning proposal. Their documents have shown from the beginning that they are only dealing with pylons and overhead lines, and they do not consider undergrounding.

We are all aware there are proposals for a North-South interconnector and grid west.

A major issue to be considered, and this is an argument trotted out by EirGrid - it uses glib wording in this respect because that is the type of wording required in an organisation such as this - is that a number of years ago EirGrid said the cost of putting the cables underground would be 15 times the cost of overhead pylons. A few years ago EirGrid officially stated that the cost would be nine times greater, and today it states it would be three times greater. The one thing I can say about EirGrid is that every time it produces a figure it is wrong. As time has passed, the figures have become more ridiculous on each occasion. We can be quite sure that its costing of the underground option as being three times greater than the cost of the overground option is also wrong. It cannot be trusted on that. That is one of the reasons we are asking for an independent international assessment to be carried out on the cost of undergrounding. We do not want to consider the issue of partial undergrounding and partial overgrounding because that would lead to additional costs.

With regard to EirGrid's documents, earlier this year the Minister published a document entitled "Government Policy Statement on the Strategic Importance of Transmission and other Energy Infrastructure", with which he will be very familiar. I agree with the document where it states, "Public acceptability requires public confidence that infrastructure adheres to the highest international standards of safety, health and environmental and visual impact, and technology choice." That document also states, "The Government does not seek to direct EirGrid and ESB Networks or other energy infrastructure developers to particular sites or routes or technologies." However, EirGrid does not seem to have got that message. In other words, the Minister is saying he has an open mind on this issue but EirGrid has not. The difficulty is that in 2008 when EirGrid produced its Grid25 document the cost of undergrounding, according to it at that stage, was about 15 times the cost of overgrounding and, therefore, it did not even contemplated the underground option. In the five years since that document was published the costings have changed. That document needs to be revisited right from the start in that context. EirGrid spoke about €4 billion of an investment on that occasion and the figure is now down to €3.2 billion. The cost has continually decreased as time has passed.

EirGrid started planning the North-South interconnector in July 2007, which was more than six years ago and it is not even at the planning application stage yet. It put in a flawed planning application and withdrew it out of embarrassment at the oral hearing. EirGrid as an organisation is not competent to do the job the Minister would require it to do, namely, to deliver electricity throughout the island of Ireland where it is needed and let that be done underground rather than an overground route. If EirGrid were planning the motorways, there would no motorway opened in Ireland.

Let us consider its experience in planning 400 kV lines. There are two major 400 kV lines in the country which run from Moneypoint to Kildare. They were put up more than 30 years ago. There is no person in EirGrid today who was involved in constructing anything like that in Ireland or in dealing with people and communities throughout the country in the last generation. There is no experience or competence in EirGrid and it is proving that time and time again. If it had been given the task of planning the motorways, we would not be even at the planning permission stage yet.

In regard to a document published on the undergrounding of the network, RPS, the consultants hired by EirGrid, considered alternatives to overhead lines but its report did not favour proposals to bury the cables. RPS said this was because its research suggested underground cables were more prone to problems and it took longer to fix them when glitches arise. I will explain that to the Minister. Two weeks ago I, along with 100 other people, attended an oral hearing in Portlaoise involving EirGrid. The oral hearing continued for six days and I was able to attend on two days. EirGrid was asked about this issue and it falsely created the impression that undergrounding would be less reliable and if a problem arose it could take up to 21 days to fix the cable. It was asked by a local councillor if there would be outages or blackouts during that 21-day period and, after six days of an oral hearing and two tonnes of documents supporting its planning application, it eventually conceded that there would not be a single minute of electricity outage because it always lays two cables when it goes to the trouble of laying cables underground. If one cable breaks it just switches to the other one and there is no disruption to power supply. It is a bogus, false statement for EirGrid to say undergrounding is unreliable and to create the impression that it would lead to blackouts. It always puts down two cables just in case one breaks down. EirGrid has never publicly said that but it was dragged out of it at an oral hearing in Portlaoise two weeks ago. The argument about reliability and accessing the cables is bogus and the Minister should run out of his office anyone who puts such an argument to him.

The issue of public consultation by EirGrid is important. It has been running a consultation process on a project in Ratheniska substation in County Laois for the past year or two. In tandem with that, Laois County Council was drawing up its new county development plan and in it the council considered the issue of power supply and transmission of electricity. As part of the public consultation by Laois County Council, a large number of submissions were received indicating that the 400 kV cables in Laois should be placed underground. Ultimately, the elected members of Laois County Council, having considered all the submissions, including those from EirGrid which participated in that public consultation process, and those from the council's own planning department, decided to insert the following requirement into the Laois county development plan, namely, "to require that all future 400 kV lines be put underground in County Laois". That is a simple sentence and that was the requirement. It was included in the final county development plan, as adopted by the elected members in accordance with all legal procedures, less than two years ago. EirGrid did not like that and the reason it did not like it was that it could not control it. It was the people, the elected members and the council who put that requirement into the county development plan. EirGrid took Laois County Council to the High Court to have that sentence deleted from its county development plan. The individual elected members of Laois County Council were informed by their legal advisers that they could be individually surcharged for any legal costs associated with a High Court challenge if they were not successful. In light of this financial threat to individual members of Laois County Council and to their family homes - that point was made clear to them - the council chose not to mount a defence. EirGrid succeeded in having this sentence deleted from the Laois county development plan by the High Court. That, to me, sums up EirGrid's attitude to public consultation. If it controls the process and can control the answer, it will go along with it but if the answer is put by somebody else and the process is carried out by somebody else and EirGrid does not like the answer, it will reject it and it will go to every court in the land to overturn what has been decided by way of public consultation. That is the most recent example in the past year or two of what it has done. That is not what it did in the case of an individual who it thought was difficult to deal with but what it did to a local authority. It took it to the High court because it did not like the development plan. That sums up EirGrid's attitude.

The Grid25 was probably drawn up at a time when it was considered absolutely impractical to consider the cost of undergrounding. That was five years ago. Time has moved on. EirGrid's costs have been always wrong on this topic. It is time to reassess that at this stage and the only way to do that is by getting a firm of international experts to examine best practice internationally because EirGrid does not have the ability or the competence to do the job. If the Minister wants Grid25 implemented, the way the EirGrid is going about it currently is certainly is not the way to do it.

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