A timely report just released by the Irish Academy of Engineering (IAE) fills a gap left by official agencies, notably the Department of Environment, in formulating a coherent policy about energy security. Growing electricity demand, driven by population growth, the spread of data centres and rising demand for electric cars has resulted, for the first time, in reliance on substantial net imports of electricity over interconnectors from the UK. But imports of natural gas also come exclusively from the UK and still account for about 40% of domestic electricity production despite the expansion of renewables. Official policy discouraged development of importation facilities for liquefied natural gas until recently – there were willing developers almost 20 years ago.

Meanwhile the Corrib gas field off Co Mayo is largely depleted and will cease production a few years hence. Exploration for gas is prohibited.

Since renewables are interruptible and battery storage at large scale hugely expensive, there will always be a need for back-up generation capable of fast deployment when the sun sets and the wind dies down. Gas-fired power plants fit the bill, even though there are significant carbon emissions. An alternative is nuclear power generation, banned in Ireland in the late 1990s. The construction lead time, even if policy changed, would be measured in decades.

In addition to these formidable challenges, Government has adopted ambitious targets for renewables and decarbonisation, including acceptance of EU targets unlikely to be met according to State agencies, the Sustainable Energy Authority and the Environmental Protection Agency. Failure to meet these targets could trigger fines from the EU and they appear to have been adopted as an expression of environmental virtue rather than as the by-product of a feasible plan for adequate energy supply. Electricity is already more expensive in Ireland than in competitor countries and will become more so if Government fails to align planning policy with cost containment.

In terms of the output required from the electricity sector, the report reckons that capacity will need to double inside 25 years. The vulnerability to insecure gas supply was identified in the national risk assessment in 2014, 11 years ago, but the IAE concludes that reliance on natural gas for electricity, heating and other uses, is inescapable until at least 2050 and most likely later. It writes: “Government policy has, to date, actively prevented this risk being mitigated.”

The policy of ambitious targets combined with complacency about practical action is illustrated by two examples from the 1970s and 1980s. In west Wicklow the ESB’s Turlough Hill pumped storage station commenced generation in 1974. The technology is straightforward – just blow the top off a mountain, insert a turbine inside and you have a large battery, storing water pumped overnight when power supply is ample to an upper reservoir to be used for generation during the daily peak. The capacity sounds impressive at 290MW, but the facility, still in active use, stores only enough water for about six hours of use flat out.

There were objections to Turlough Hill in those far-off pre-Nimby days: while there may be a few other mountains suitable for the same treatment, no engineer has dared to suggest a suitable location. In 1985, the biggest transmission line in the Eirgrid system to this day, the twin 400KV lines from Moneypoint in Clare to Dublin, were commissioned. The company has struggled to build significant high voltage lines in recent years and, in retrospect, was lucky to have secured permission for the Moneypoint to Dublin project when they did.

To meet the Government’s stated targets for electricity will require, according to the academy, over 350 large energy infrastructure projects including 200 large onshore wind and solar farms plus transformer stations and overhead transmission lines around the country. Each will require environmental impact assessments and planning consent.

The political get-out-of-jail-free card, at least for onshore wind, has been the untold energy riches hiding out in the Atlantic, where there are no residents’ associations.

West coast project

The sole active west coast project off Connemara was abandoned last week, after a reported €30m write-off, by its promoters, the Australian bank Macquarie and Canadian investors. They cited excessive costs and the dream of a convenient Atlantic alternative, justifying opposition to cheaper onshore wind, is fading fast.

The official objective, which has survived the imminent failure to meet even the 2030 targets, is to achieve a climate neutral electricity system by 2050. The entire project will ultimately be paid for by customers and taxpayers and there has never been an estimate of the full price they will meet. The academy authors lament the failure to calculate the cost impact of the policy and conclude hopefully: “Ireland needs an energy policy which goes beyond wishful thinking to recognise engineering, financial and project delivery realities.”