Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senators for their contributions. I will go through them, beginning with that of Senator Pauline O'Reilly. She and Senator Dooley both pointed out that the long-term solution here is more renewables. However, when there is a short-term problem, you do what needs to be done to keep the lights on.

Senator Dooley spoke about what went wrong with the 2019 procurement. Regretting the past is obviously not helpful, but if we do not learn from the past, we are condemned to repeat our mistakes. An independent review was commissioned by the Department and carried out by Mr. Dermot McCarthy. Its purpose was to ascertain how the present situation arose. That review has been completed and received by my Department and is under consideration. It will be brought to Government as part of a wider energy security review package and published thereafter. The question then is what happens the next time we have to commission capacity.

I welcome everybody who is in the Gallery to listen to this gripping debate on energy security. Just so our visitors know, we are passing an emergency law to ensure we do not have power cuts next winter and we are debating the right way to do that. We have these so-called capacity auctions and the idea of such auctions is to ensure there is enough electricity capacity to make sure the lights stay on and that our electricity system works even in the most difficult of circumstances when we do not have any wind power and a number of our generation stations have broken down.

What we are looking for here is backup, facilities that will operate for a short period every year or possibly not at all. We hold an auction and people bid and say how much it is going to cost. I have my own views about what went wrong but it would be wise of me to wait until the McCarthy report is published rather than giving my opinions on what went wrong. There are more auctions coming. An auction for capacity to be delivered in 2023 and 2024 will be held in July and the results published in September. This will have a focus on batteries. An auction for capacity to be delivered in 2026 to 2027 will be held in March and the results published in May. An auction for capacity to be delivered in 2027 to 2028 will be held in September and the results published in November. Those auctions and that process will be informed by experience and the McCarthy review to ensure we learn and do not end up here again. As Senator Boylan and other Senators pointed out, we cannot keep coming back here again and again. That is the situation we are in and how we are going to learn from the past.

Senator Conway asked whether Moneypoint is operational. I understand parts of it are. I think a number of turbines are running and a number are not. That changes with maintenance schedules and so on. As for the future of the station, it has a huge connection into the electricity grid and is, therefore, an ideal location for installing new electricity connections. It is also has a port and there is all the experience the ESB has, as well as a huge amount of wind blowing over that part of south Clare. Moneypoint is likely to become a major location for offshore wind, hydrogen generation and possibly hydrogen export. The Dutch and German governments have approached me about buying our hydrogen in future. There is, therefore, a bright future for Moneypoint. Whatever happens, the grid connection at the station is likely to mean there will be major investment there in our green economy. I am hopeful about that.

Senator Boylan said she is not opposing the Bill and I thank her for that. She asked the reasonable question of why this was not flagged. This is the third piece of emergency generation legislation and the Senator wants to know why we did not say, last time around, that we would need this legislation. Based on the advice we had, we expected to be able to do this through secondary legislation. However, we received advice from the Attorney General in January that we would need primary legislation and that is why were are here. As Senators can imagine, I would prefer not to do this. Another question posed was whether we are doing this to free up the EPA to work on other licences. That is not the answer at all. We are doing this because we believe we legally have to do it.

Senator Higgins asked questions about an amendment she tabled that she suggests has been ruled out of order, namely, amendment No. 2. It proposes:

The Minister shall, within six months of the passing of this Act, commission and publish reports on— (a) the level of increased demand by large energy users in the period 2017 to 2022,

(b) a breakdown of large energy users that participated in demand side reduction mechanisms during that period,

(c) a critical appraisal of existing demand side reduction strategies, and

(d) a comprehensive plan to ensure the prioritisation of demand side reduction measures over increased electricity generation into the future.”.

The main thing about these matters is that they are outside the scope of the functions of the EPA. That is why they do not belong in this Bill. They may be reasonable things to do and I am happy to correspond with the Senator on that and see if we can get the information she requires. Energy demand is of course an important thing to measure and manage but it is not appropriate to have it in this legislation because it is EPA legislation. Did Senator Higgins ask whether there will be a transboundary consultation?