Eamon Ryan can only give qualified assurances of no power outages this winter

Green Party leader and environment minister Eamon Ryan says that "many older plants are not performing as efficiently as a new plant would". Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

Environment minister Eamon Ryan says he is "increasingly confident" that Ireland will avoid power outages this winter, but "we never know".

Mr Ryan was asked by Sinn Féin's Darren O'Rourke for assurances that the country will not face blackouts in the winter as demand for electricity ramps up. 

Last week the Single Electricity Market Operator (Semo) issued an amber warning about the low availability of generation to cover emergencies. Concern was raised throughout the summer regarding Ireland's ability to handle power supply in the winter months.

Warnings in June from national grid operator EirGrid prompted Eamon Ryan to sign off on a plan to import and rent six gas-powered generators, producing an additional 200MW of energy at a brownfield site in Dublin.

The €130m plan was abandoned in August, with the department saying that two offline plants at Whitegate in Cork and Huntstown in Dublin will come back online by the winter. Sources have confirmed to the Irish Examiner that parts for the plants are expected to arrive in October and November.

Whitegate power plant, Cork.

Mr Ryan told Mr O'Rourke that power generation is a "complex situation" which has to factor in a number of years and challenges, including the 2025 closure of the Moneypoint coal-fired plant. 

However, he said: "Our expectation is now that we will not have outages this winter, but we never know. 

"There could be a power station breakdown, or something similar to the loss of the two large gas power stations that went offline early this year. 

There are always developments that cannot be completely predicted but, subject to the return of the two gas power stations, we expect to be able to get through this winter period."

Mr O'Rourke said that the prospect of blackouts is "incredible", adding that Ireland is moving back to the 1970s.

"There is genuine mismanagement and policy incoherence," he said.

On the one hand, there is the shift towards renewables but, on the other, there is increasing demand for data centres."

Fine Gael Cork East TD David Stanton.

Fine Gael Cork East TD David Stanton later pressed Mr Ryan for guarantees that there will be no blackouts, with Mr Ryan saying that the situation will depend on whether the existing plants remain firing over the winter.

"Nothing is certain, but we are increasingly confident that we will not have to experience blackouts this winter," said Mr Ryan.

The underlying challenge is still there. There were two amber alerts last week, which occur when the power is less than something like 400MW or 500MW. 

"If another large plant came down, we might have to shed loads, which is when an amber alert would occur. We are in these circumstances for a variety of reasons, including increasing demand, but the main one is that many older plants are not performing as efficiently as a new plant would."