Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

To go further into the issue of wet storage, the Deputy will be aware that Shannon Foynes Port Company commissioned a report by the Bechtel group, which is a major international consultancy house on engineering and design. That report should demonstrate the need, when working with offshore floating wind, depending on weather windows and a standardised production schedule, for a location where the turbines can be stored floating in the sea, with their concrete or steel foundations in place. Bechtel will set out exactly how that could and should be done at the Shannon Estuary. As I said, we need to do a similar exercise for the Port of Cork.

The analysis and work we need to do is not just about the deployment out. It is also about focusing on what we do with the power when it comes in. I emphasised those two locations because the Shannon Estuary, with Aughinish Alumina, Irish Cement, Shannon Airport, Tarbert and Moneypoint nearby, already has very extensive brownfield energy infrastructure which can be used in this new way with this new energy coming ashore. Similarly, the Port of Cork is near Whitegate Refinery, power generation locations, pharmaceutical industries and the former nitrates site at Marino Point, which are areas that have historically had major energy infrastructure. We need to think about not just wet storage but what we do with the power when it comes ashore. That is as important as the deployment outwards of the energy.

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