Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This morning I want to discuss again the latest narrative on potential energy shortages. The Minister with responsibility for energy needs to come to the House for a debate on the issue. I would like to see the debate focused on the role of the energy companies in this potential and threatened crisis. I can give a number of examples. I have been contacted by somebody who installed solar panels and is prepared to supply energy to the grid. To get this energy accepted and paid for is an unbelievable task.The power generation company in question has no interest. It is putting up hurdle after hurdle. It has changed the format of one form, which has already been submitted and now a new form has to go in.

I have another example of a factory that put a great many panels on its roof and would be in a position to supply an enormous amount of power back into the grid. That industry closes down at 1 o'clock on Fridays. One of the directors noticed on his phone, which shows the graph of how much power is being generated, that the line dropped to a straight line across the bottom at 1.30 p.m. on the first Friday the panels were in situ. When he went to research what was going on, he realised that, unbeknownst to himself, since this was the first time he had ever done anything like this, he had signed a contract containing something called a kill switch. Therefore, when his machines stopped running and drawing energy, the power company cut off the power. The power that was then being generated was being dumped.

Do the energy companies want this energy? We hear about potential shortages and then we hear stories like those. Why is there even such a thing as a kill switch in such contracts, irrespective of whether or not the person reads the small print, if we are potentially faced with an energy shortage? The latest narrative is that smart meters would solve all this, that we should all have solar panels and that anyone with a smart meter would be able to put power back into the grid. Now the narrative on the smart meter is that it will be used only to measure peak-time electricity and that there will be peak-time charges. Now people are refusing to take smart meters. The narrative is totally wrong. The Minister needs to come in and discuss this, but he also needs to sit down with the energy companies because they do not seem to want the power that, according to the story they keep peddling, they do not have.