EirGrid’s newly announced plans to add 450km of electricity lines to the national grid include the 20-year-old North-South interconnector proposal that has been delayed by planning woes and local opposition.
The State company’s strategy document published this week references plans to spend €6 billion boosting the capacity of 1,000km of existing electricity lines and adding new ones.
But the 450km in new electricity transmission lines include the 138km-long north-south link connecting counties Meath and Tyrone that has been part of EirGrid’s plans since 2006, the State company confirmed on Wednesday.
Plans for the 138km interconnector date back 20 years, but an error that forced withdrawal of its first planning application, legal action and reviews of alternative options have delayed its completion.
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Two reviews undertaken in response to local concerns ruled out the possibility of putting the power line underground rather than on pylons.
EirGrid noted that “the project has undergone an extensive planning process and now has full planning and legal consent”.
The high-capacity power line should be completed by 2031, according to the national grid operator’s latest calculations.
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Government has deemed the North-South Interconnector critical infrastructure while EirGrid said it was a strategic priority.
Energy industry figures partly blame its absence for ongoing problems with the grid that force wind farms in Northern Ireland to shut down electricity production.
This was denying the country as a whole access to supplies of cheap renewable electricity, industry body Wind Energy Ireland has said.
Up to 20 per cent to 30 per cent of available wind-powered electricity in Northern Ireland can be shut off as a result of grid bottlenecks, the group’s chief executive, Noel Cunniffe, said recently.
EirGrid says independent estimates show that electricity consumers across Ireland will save around €100 million a year once the interconnector is energised.
“The delays to the project have not allowed these benefits to be realised as intended,” the company has said.
EirGrid published its strategy document this week. The company plans to prepare the Republic’s electricity system for what it calls “unprecedented change”.
Demand will more than double by 2050 while “large volumes of new renewable generation, including offshore wind, onshore wind, solar and battery storage expected to come on to the system in the years ahead”, it predicted.
Regulators and Government last year approved spending of almost €19 billion on the State’s electricity networks.
Developing the grid will, among other aims, allow it to cater for new homes needed to tackle a housing shortage with which successive governments have tried to grapple for more than a decade.
Electricity enables “investment, regional development, housing, innovation”, EirGrid chief executive Cathal Marley said at the launch.
Chairman Brendan Tuohy said electricity was “becoming the foundation of society”, not just a single part of the economy.
EirGrid published its plans as concerns grow within the energy industry at the potential for increased bottlenecks on the Republic’s national grid.
