Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Cowen raises a fair point in what has happened previously in other markets, and he has named the financial one. The Minister, Deputy Ryan, is looking closely at and is following this and I will certainly bring back to the Minister the Deputy’s concerns. It is right that we interrogate the data and try to get behind what these high prices are about as well as focusing on the importance of the security of supply.

One of the issues in respect of the ESB is that a new T-4 capacity auction was held in April 2009 with successful new projects required to be delivered in the 2022-23 capacity year. New projects that are awarded capacity contracts are required under the rules of the capacity markets to report on and demonstrate the progress of their projects between contract award and project delivery with specific milestones that must be reached within specific timeframes. Five of the new projects that the ESB won contracts for in that 2009 T-4 auction, consisting of 461 MW of new capacity, failed to demonstrate progression in line with the required timeframes and, as a result, these contracts were terminated. This was announced on 11 January this year. It is understood that the ESB considered that it could not deliver projects that had secured capacity contracts within the requirements and timeframe of the market period 2022-23 and therefore had to withdraw. As this contract for ESB generation was for the period 2022-23, its absence is not the reason for the current tightness in the electricity security of supply which is due to the unavailability of existing conventional generating power plants due to a mix of planned outages, maintenance and forced outages, as well as a growing electricity demand.

On the penalty, the ESB was required to pay a charge following termination of its capacity contracts for 2022-23. The associated notices were published at notice 1 and notice 2. The total amount of the termination charges was €4.1 million and the amount of capacity that was terminated was 461 MW. The application of termination charges is required under the capacity market code and the schedule of termination charges to apply in any given auction is set by the single electricity market committee. However, the charges were invoiced and collected by EirGrid and the System Operator for Northern Ireland, SONI, in their role as administrators of the capacity market code.

On the issue of Moneypoint, the termination of the 461 MW of new capacity that was awarded to the ESB was not due to the 2021-23-----

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