War in Ukraine increases urgency to reduce gas demand, Friends of the Earth say

Now is the time to prioritise reducing gas demand wherever feasible in Ireland, an Oireachtas committee has heard

It has “never been clearer” that now is the time to prioritise reducing gas demand wherever feasible in Ireland, an Oireachtas committee has heard.

Jerry Mac Evilly, head of policy at Friends of the Earth, told the Oireachtas committee on environment and climate action that “the context has fundamentally changed with the Russian invasion of Ukraine” and “this pressure is only going to increase, which underlines the need for near-term action”.

The hearing is the latest the committee has had on the challenges to the country's energy supply and security into the future.

TDs heard from Mr Mac Evilly as well as from environmental NGO Global Witness and from the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU).

Aoife MacEvilly, chairperson of CRU, said Ireland needed to be planning for the future, particularly in light of recent events.

“Just to put our emphasis on gas security in context, even though we have over 5,000 mega watts of renewable electricity generation capacity on the system, this morning we were getting as little as 19 mega watts from that capacity because it happens to be a still, not very windy, day,” Ms MacEvilly said. 

She said Ireland was reliant on gas generation as well as coal generation in this instance, as well as interconnection.

“If we want to continue to provide security on days like this, we will need to continue to have dispatchable generation capacity to ensure the lights stay on,” Ms MacEvilly said.

She said there was a really important priority in ensuring security of gas supply and bolstering security of electricity supply.

“At the same time, there is an equally and perhaps more important driver around decarbonising that gas supply over time," Ms Mac Evilly said.

Every piece of investment that we make in terms of our energy infrastructure should be future-proofed in line with our decarbonisation aspirations.” 

In his opening statement, Jerry Mac Evilly said it was evident that gas currently represents a significant element of Ireland’s fuel mix.

“It is no longer acceptable to throw out the line that fossil methane gas is ‘needed for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine’ — this is 2022 not 2012,” he said.

“Cliched comments regarding 'trade-offs' or 'balance' between energy security and climate action run the risk of amounting to little more than an acceptance of an intolerable status quo,” he added. 

“I would urge the committee to be clear that energy security and energy sustainability go hand-in-hand and are best achieved by cutting fossil fuel use and reducing overall energy consumption.”