Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The electricity sector is absolutely fundamental to achieving our national climate objectives and as such, Climate Action Plan 2023 sets a highly ambitious target of having renewable sources meet 80% of electricity demand by 2030. The plan also includes a comprehensive suite of actions through which we will realise the full potential of Ireland’s onshore and offshore renewable energy resources and continue to be an international leader in the development and generation of renewable energy, setting us on a course for a low-carbon, climate resilient future.

A renewable-led system is one of the core foundations of the climate action plan. This will allow us to radically reduce our emissions and our dependency on imported fossil fuels and to protect our energy security with indigenous renewable generation, as enshrined in the Government's recently launched energy security package. To ensure we keep pace with demand, we must accelerate the delivery of renewable electricity generation. This requires accelerating progress across the three pillars of renewables delivery, namely grid, planning and route to market. Two cross-Government and agency task forces have been established to support this. The accelerating renewable electricity task force has been established to coordinate and fast-track the increased deployment and output of onshore renewable electricity generation and support technologies in the near-term. The offshore wind delivery task force was established to drive delivery and capture the wider and longer-term economic and business opportunities associated with the development of offshore renewables.

The national electricity grid will provide the backbone for reaching our renewable electricity targets. lreland’s system operators, ESB Networks and EirGrid, are working on increasing our network efficiency, network resilience, and our ability to integrate variable renewable energy sources while reducing the need for new infrastructure where possible. In January this year ESB Networks published its Networks for Net Zero strategy outlining its commitment to meeting our 2030 targets, future-proofing our electricity network and making the country’s goal of net zero by 2050 a reality. In July this year, EirGrid published an updated version of Shaping Our Electricity Future, its roadmap for an electricity system which will incorporate 80% renewable electricity by 2030. EirGrid has identified more than 350 projects to be delivered at transmission system level and the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, has sanctioned a €4 billion capital investment spend on the grid up to 2025.

To facilitate the unprecedented level of development required, alignment between the elements of the planning and permitting system at national, regional, and local levels to support the accelerated roll-out of renewable energy generation is required. Officials from the Departments of Housing, Local Government, and Heritage, and Environment, Climate and Communications are working closely on a range of policy measures to support the further roll-out of renewable electricity. This is in addition to the significant planning reform the Government introduced through the Planning and Development Bill, 2023, which will improve the consistency and alignment throughout all tiers of planning, provide increased certainty across the planning system through the introduction of statutory timelines for decision-making, and significantly increase the resources available to An Bord Pleanála.

The Deputies are absolutely correct about the importance of the renewable system in enabling Ireland to meet its carbon targets for 2050 and indeed, more rapidly, for 2030. An enormous amount of work has taken place in a relatively short period of time. We have done a lot in the past three and half years to catch up. We were a long way behind but we are moving rapidly to catch up and meet our ambitious targets.

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