ESB fast track plans under fire

AN environmental group has hit out at a proposed Government measure to fast track the planning process on high-voltage overhead power lines.

Communications and Natural Resources Minister Dermot Ahern yesterday announced new legislation to avoid delays on the roll out of major ESB network projects.

With the ESB planning to invest almost €4bn in the immediate future in modernising the transmission and distribution networks, Mr Ahern said Ireland cannot afford the luxury of waiting years for the planning process to run its course while critical infrastructure remained undelivered.

However, Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) said the minister’s proposals were fundamentally misguided.

The FIE said the minister’s approach underlined a warning given in last month’s OECD Report on Ireland that there was too close a relationship between the operators of the grid distribution system and the primary producer of power in Ireland.

Mr Ahern said work was advancing on the proposed Transmission Planning Bill designed to speed up the planning process for major transmission projects.

He said: “We have seen the high profile delays in improving the country’s high voltage network.

“There are particular problems with projects which cross county boundaries or convey no obvious benefit to transit areas.

“In the future, such projects have to be identified as being of national strategic importance and dealt with through a fast-tracked planning process.”

But the FIE said investment in electricity transmission funding should go into designing and implementing a transmission system that would be suited to the generation of small scale and widely distributed energy sources.

“The minister’s model is outdated and inefficient even without renewable energy,” said FIE spokesman Tony Lowes.