Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the ladies from the Liberties History Group, which is based in Robert Emmet centre, Usher Street. You are very welcome, ladies, to our Public Gallery. Thank you for being here and for your real interest in our Irish history. I hope you have a very enjoyable and informative morning.

The Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, is very welcome.

Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein)
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Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit, and I welcome the women from the Liberties. I am a fellow Liberties woman, so it is great to see them in the Chamber.

I wish to raise the issue of the impact of increasing electricity demand on electricity costs for households. The focus over recent months in the cost-of-living crisis has been on the cost of energy and the cost of gas heating. In October 2022 there was an emergency EU regulation on an intervention to address high energy prices. It proposed a mandatory target for member states to reduce consumption of electricity during "peak hours" by 5%. The focus on peak hours is really important and justified because gas-fired power has the most significant impact on prices at this time. We know that gas is the issue around the war in Ukraine. The regulation states: "Natural gas-fired power plants are often needed to satisfy the demand for electricity when the demand is at its highest during the day." That is why, according to the European Commission, reducing demand peaks would "contribute to a reduced fuel consumption and [therefore] to a smoother repartition of demand across hours, impacting hourly market prices". In other words, in plain English, during times of peak demand, electricity providers often rely on additional power plants, including those powered by fossil fuels, to meet the increased electricity needs. If, therefore, we could bring down our demand peaks, there would be less reliance on those extra power plants, and that then would result in lower fuel consumption. When demand is evenly distributed, it lessens the need for costly measures to manage the peak demand, such as activating expensive backup power plants.

It is very obvious from what we see at EU level that the EU thinks there is a serious problem with peak demand and its impact on the cost of electricity and energy that households are paying. The Government says it has complied with the regulation, and that seems to be because, while I would not say there was a little bit of "cooking the books", it seems very odd to me that the target was set against projected electricity demand instead of looking at previous demand. Technically, we might have reached the 5% reduction in electricity demand, but what really matters is whether we have actually reduced absolute demand, and it is very clear we have not because the analysis carried out by Ember reveals that Ireland is the only EU country that has increased its electricity demand. We might have set a target for reducing demand by 5% but, because we chose a baseline of projected electricity demand as opposed to what the demand was in the previous year, we will now technically reach the target without having reduced our electricity demand.

What is the Government doing to reduce overall electricity demand in this country? How many people are employed in the Department to look at this? I am not talking about demand-side reduction, whereby data centres power down when there is pressure on the grid; I am talking about how this country is addressing and reducing its absolute electricity demand. It does not take a genius to work out why Ireland is an outlier and why we cannot reduce our electricity demand. It is because electricity consumption by data centres increased by 32% between 2020 and 2021, and between January to March 2015 and October to December 2021, there was a 265% increase in electricity demand. That is why we are going in the wrong direction when we talk about reducing our overall electricity demand in this country.

Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael)
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Just in case they leave soon, I welcome the ladies from the Robert Emmet centre, specifically the Liberties History Group whose members are all from my home constituency of Dublin South-Central. You are very welcome, ladies.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I also welcome all the guests to the Seanad for this debate.

I thank Senator Boylan for raising this issue. I wish to report on further measures the Government is taking to enable consumers to become more involved in and aware of their own energy usage. At an EU level, the REPowerEU programme calls for much more citizen engagement with the clean energy transition to empower citizens to take action. Since November 2022, customers have been able to access their smart meter data directly from ESB Networks, following the launch of its new customer portal. That portal provides online independent access for customers to see their own electricity consumption data in order to better understand their electricity demand profile and to be in a position to assess opportunities to reduce their use, move their use to off-peak periods or compare tariff options from other suppliers. That, in turn, can reduce the carbon footprint of their electricity use and, potentially, save them money on their bills.

We have more and more smart meters installed - 1.3 million to date - and competition between suppliers on standard smart tariff, SST, rates is increasing as well as further offerings on smart services and energy insights.The Climate Action Plan 2023 commits Ireland to the development of market incentives to support and encourage active energy citizens to switch demand to times of high wind or solar. Such incentives include the development of dynamic green electricity tariffs at times of high wind and solar output facilitated through new market participants operating in the retail electricity market.

The capacity remuneration mechanism is designed to ensure the demand for electricity is always met. This is achieved through a series of auctions, which are run at varying timeframes in advance of capacity delivery, new investment and existing generation capacity. They compete to ensure that payments closely reflect the value provided by the capacity and deliver the best outcome for consumers.

As the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, stated during its appearance before the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action last week, it continues to monitor the market and it is also reviewing the effectiveness of the enhanced consumer protection measures that have been put in place over the recent winter months.

Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State. We all know that households have to play their part in reducing their demand, and smart meters are part of that. I have flagged numerous times that many people who live in apartments and flats are being gaslit by the Government's policy when they hear people on the radio telling them when is a good time to dry their clothes outside when they are not actually allowed to do that under their residential tenancy agreements.

The question today, however, is about looking at electricity demand overall as a society and the impact that is having on people's household bills. We know from EirGrid's forecasting that even with the electrification of heat and transport in households, the biggest driver of electricity demand in this country is from large energy users and data centres. Will the Minister of State commit to providing us with the two updates he gave to the European Commission on Ireland's progress to reaching our targets on overall electricity demand reduction? How many people in the Department are actually working on reducing demand? I am not referring to demand-side reduction but to reducing our overall demand for electricity?

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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The Senator is asking not how many people are working in demand-side reduction but how many people are working on reducing demand.

Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein)
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Yes.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I will clarify with her afterwards exactly what figures she wants, which I am happy to do. I am also happy to give her or any Senator the updates or documents they want in this regard. Reducing demand, of course, involves smart meters and industry. We have changed the rules on data centres and how they can connect. It is very difficult to get a grid connection at this stage for a data centre. Two things are needed for a data centre. One is a grid connection and the other is planning permission. In future, full back-up of a data centre will be needed in order to connect, which was the standard anyway. I see data centres moving towards using biofuel instead of fossil fuels. Therefore, they have to play their part.

With the development of solar, which is spreading very fast now, and the addition of batteries, we have taken VAT off solar panels and batteries. That battery combination with solar, with the smart control system, allows people who install solar, or schools or hospitals, to be able to balance their energy demand at peak hours. At times when electricity is most needed and expensive and hardest to get, people with solar would be able to rely on their battery storage in their homes to balance the grid better.

The Senator is absolutely right. I am delighted to see her going into such detail on this topic. She has obviously thought it through and considered the challenges around peak electricity use and how much of that should be borne by consumers and how much should be borne by industry. It is a vital topic. It is important not just for reducing our emissions and avoiding using gas but also for avoiding the situation of power cuts. We have taken huge measures to ensure that does not happen.