Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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154. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government to outline the plans for investment in the grid over the coming decade. [48949/25]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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Investing in our electricity network, and ensuring it is fit for purpose, is overseen by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) in five-year cycles called Price Reviews. The CRU is an independent regulator, accountable to a Committee of the Oireachtas and not to me as Minister. The CRU is responsible for, inter alia, the economic regulation of the Irish electricity system operators ESB Networks, distribution, and EirGrid, transmission.

On 3 July, the CRU published its Draft Determination on Price Review 6 (PR6). PR6 will deliver on the Programme for Government priority to ensure that the necessary investment is made in the electricity grid. The CRU are proposing to approve an investment of up to €18 billion in our electricity system between 2026-2030, with a €14 billion baseline investment guaranteed.

PR6 will set out the investment to take place over the period 2026-2030, with the Final Determination expected to be published by CRU in December of this year. Implementation of PR6 will start immediately following approval by the CRU, with the investment to be undertaken next year already approved as part of the Network Tariff setting announced by CRU in August this year.

PR6 will see major investment in the onshore electricity grid and represents a step change in grid development and investment, a process which will see further progressive scaling during the 2030s to meet future targets. These investments will start to deliver the building blocks on which we will expand our onshore grid out to 2050.

The draft determination will enable the delivery of over 500 capital network projects, the growth of our economy, the connection of new housing to our electricity system, the integration of greater renewable energy, both on and offshore, and decarbonisation.