Irish Examiner View: Energy issues could lead to winter of discontent

Eirgrid has stated that low wind is a contributing factor for a recent amber alert on the electricity market. Picture: Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews.ie

This week’s second alert from EirGrid warning of the potential for temporary electricity supply issues doesn’t bode well for the coming winter here in Ireland.

EirGrid said that it was experiencing ‘tight margins’ due to low wind, limited electricity imports, and forced outages at a number of generators. This, at a time when electricity is historically in low demand, does not bode well for when demand is at its highest — in the winter months.

With ongoing local debate about the further development of power-hunger data centres and concerns about a potential fuel crisis as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the coming months look bleak when it comes to energy supplies and, therefore, electricity availability in our homes.

Data centres are the biggest drivers of energy demand here, and the Government has already been advised to put a moratorium on the construction of new ones as we face nationwide electricity blackouts.

All of this begs questions as to why we have no gas storage facilities in this country — although the ESB has looked into this possibility and identified a suitable site with the requisite geological make-up — and why no decisions have yet been taken on energy security in order to allow the economy function properly into the future.

This is a time when decisions have to be made quickly and with assurance so the country is not facing into a winter of discontent. 

It does not seem in any way urgent that a review into the security of energy supplies, begun in 2019, will not be completed until the first half of next year. Instead it appears we are blindly stumbling into an energy crisis partly of our own making.