Pressure on the Republic’s electricity supplies is hindering vital efforts to improve the network that brings power to homes and businesses, a new report reveals.
EirGrid, the State-owned electricity grid operator, has extensive plans to upgrade the network to meet growing demand and prepare it to take on more renewable-generated power.
A new report says, however, that many of these projects face increasing delays because a squeeze on electricity supplies prevents the State company from shutting down parts of the network to allow work to go ahead.
Dubbed an “outage” by the industry, improvement or maintenance on any part of the network often requires it to be shut down to facilitate this work.
Difficulty with scheduling these outages were the main reason upgrading work on the national grid was delayed in 2023, according to consultants TNEI Group, hired by the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities to explore why such projects stalled.
Their report points out that fears for security of electricity supplies, prompted by growing demand and a shortage of power plants, have added to the normal challenges that outages pose.
“With tight generation margins, outages in areas such as Dublin have been extremely difficult to grant,” the consultants say.
It adds that difficulties in allowing an “ever-increasing number of outage requests” risks creating a significant backlog of both maintenance and capital works.
Their report, Transmission Infrastructure Delivery Monitoring Recommendations, points out that the need for outages increased dramatically in the last five years as more improvement projects began.
They expect more increases in coming years to accommodate further plans to boost the electricity network.
Difficulties with shutting down parts of the network to accommodate work delayed 34 of 65 projects in 2023, the consultants' review found.
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The report notes that scheduling outages to facilitate upgrades and maintenance is always difficult, as EirGrid has to manage them to ensure there is no threat to electricity supplies.
Commenting on the report, EirGrid said that it was developing a plan with ESB Networks, responsible for the lines that bring electricity from the grid to customers, to tackle the problem.
The company explained that it was working on an “unprecedented programme of new grid infrastructure” to strengthen the system.
Outage management is critical to this but is very challenging for several reasons, EirGrid pointed out.
It added that those reasons included “the exceptional scale and pace of change needed to deliver the new infrastructure and upgrades required to the existing system, to deliver the Government’s Climate Action Plan”.
Increased electricity imports from Britain have helped ease pressure on supplies while the Republic is also relying on several gas- and diesel-fired temporary emergency power plants as a backstop.
