Energy supply and blackouts
Deputy Doherty pressed for a guarantee against blackouts and a debate on energy supply threats. The Tánaiste said a debate would be appropriate, but could not absolutely guarantee no blackouts if power stations remain out of action.
Following on from the final matter raised on Leaders' Questions, yesterday the Taoiseach could not give an cast-iron guarantee that there will not be any blackouts as a result of electricity shortages. Yesterday it was reported that the Tánaiste was saying he was reasonably confident that there will not be any problems. People want more than that. People want to know there is a guarantee that there will not be blackouts. All the while, ordinary people are seeing prices increase and hikes in their bills because of the failure to plan adequately for demand largely driven by the proliferation of data centres in recent years. I note, in particular, the work of the RTÉ journalist, Mr. Philip Boucher-Hayes, in highlighting this issue and, again yesterday, highlighting how the Irish Academy of Engineering wrote to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment in 2019 and received no response. It is a very serious issue. Despite the slew of Fine Gael Deputies coming out yesterday and backing the continued construction of data centres, it is clear that we need to have a conversation about the demands placed on the energy infrastructure into the future.
Comment on this
Failure to tackle this will simply lead to serious increased problems in bills.
Comment on this
Could the Tánaiste support a debate in this House on the issue of the threats to our energy supply?
Comment on this
It would be appropriate and reasonable to have a debate on that. I am sure that can be taken up by the Business Committee.
As I said earlier, based on the presentations that I have seen from EirGrid, the regulator and the Department, I am confident that the plan that is being put in place will enable us to avoid blackouts or brownouts this winter but nobody can absolutely guarantee that because we need those two power stations that are out of action, in Huntstown and in Cork, to be back in action in October and November to avoid it.
The issue of price is a different matter. The issue of price is driven by a very significant increase in gas prices across Europe which unfortunately is not something that we can control.
Data centres make up approximately 11% of our electricity demand here in Ireland. One large power station is enough to power all of them. Of course, the increase in the number of data centres planned over the coming years is an issue. We need to make sure that data centres are part of the solution, as well as part of the problem, which they are.