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

I might answer that question first. It relates to an earlier question about grid connections and the crew looking at our connections policy. There is real potential for us to maximise the existing grid where we do have both solar and wind. They tend not to come at the same time. Windy days are typically cloudier, sunny days less so. It makes real sense to integrate wind and solar, as the Deputy suggested, and optimise the use of the grid.

Going back to Deputy Stanton's question, part of that predictable, regular process was the creation of the new Maritime Area Planning Act, the establishment of MARA and the resourcing of all those agencies. Included in that is that we are on track with the publication last summer of our first southern DMAP, about 900 MW located very much to optimise grid. It could be delivered in two 450 MW chunks or one single 900 MW chunk. We will see what the market delivers on that. There was a nine-week consultation on it which finished just last month. It will be published in Q1 next year and we expect it to be concluded and approved by Government shortly after that. We are on track for the southern waters. That should give real certainty for the second auction results. There are a lot of businesses and developers interested in the area. The biggest constraint is access to environmental data, understanding the subsea, sea floor and below that. As we go towards more regular DMAP systems, the advantage will be that we can provide a lot of the environmental data and de-risk the projects in that respect. That is where we are going to help companies to make investment decisions knowing they are not going to be tripped up on environmental constraint.

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