Energy Security

[fiannafailure]

Wombat
Last night in the peak oil thread, you brought up the idea of strategic planning.

There was a stategic investment conference in Dublin today at which the Minister for energy Eamon Ryan was a speaker, S of I have been in consultation with the Irish Wind Energy Association, I am meeting a representative of the Irish Offshore Wind Association next week and between all of these groups in addition to the existing wind farm operators there are advanced plans to put about 18 GW of energy onto the grid, in addition to this the thermal operators have in place or in planning about 10 Gw of capacity, there are various groups and companies planning to put almost a GW of Combined Heat and Power plants on the Grid in the same timeframe, 2010 - 2015.

Our national demand on the coldest darkest winter day is under 6 GW and Irish companies are planning to put almost 30 Gw of capacity onto the Grid, unless there is a national strategic plan put into place soon, there is going to be a little problem of NAMA proportions.

On the other hand, if there is a national plan put into place now, we can prove to the world that we have learnt from our NAMA moment.

Our nearest neighbour, Britain, are admitting publicly that they are going to have a problem meeting their demand by 2015 and are talking about the possibility of rolling powercuts and in Ireland we have the opposite problem, what can we do with our excess capacity, worth Billions. And that is only a fraction of the capacity possible.

The EU commision have amended the 2020 renewable plan, to allow countries to import renewable energy to meet the those same targets.

The Minister spoke at the European offshore wind energy conference in the last few days about his intention to promote Irelands energy exports. But I think that we now have to put the talk into action, fast.

At the moment we have about a GW of interconnection with Britain, with one or two more at various stages of planning, I would suggest that we should look at this with a lot more urgency.

Or we could let yet another opportunity to enrich the country and provide over a hundred thousand long term jobs, pass us by.

[SPN]

Just came across this chart and thought I should put it on the record here


.

[cactusflower]

There's an Oireachtas Committee meeting next week on the grid.

[fiannafailure]

There's an Oireachtas Committee meeting next week on the grid.

Is it because of me and my criticism!!!!!