Irish Management Institute national conference:ESB CHIEF executive Padraig McManus yesterday urged the Government to examine ways in which various modes of transport could be powered by electricity as a means of Ireland reducing its carbon emissions and meeting its environmental obligations.
Speaking at the Irish Management Institute (IMI) national conference in Powerscourt, Mr McManus outlined how the ESB was working towards a position where it had "net zero carbon emissions" by 2035.
The State-owned company plans to replace its oil and coal-fired stations with wind and ocean energy, and stations powered by "clean coal" over the next 25 years.
This is part of a €22 billion capital investment by the company to 2022. The company will be out of oil stations by 2012.
Mr McManus said the electricity required to power all of our cars here amounts to about 2,000 megawatts a day.
He said this could easily be supplied by electricity providers, including the ESB, during the night, when most people are asleep and demand is low. The ESB's electricity output is currently about 5,500 megawatts.
"I believe the Government should look to maximise the use of electricity in the economy and particularly in the transport sector," Mr McManus said.
"The development of electric cars is going to grow and I think Ireland should be pushing in that direction."
In relation to public transport, Mr McManus cited the example of Belgium, where about 85 per cent of the rail services are electrified - in Ireland that figure is just 3 per cent.
Mr McManus said this shift would probably be a "slow process" but added that we should begin working towards it now, and should consider investing in buses powered by electricity.
The ESB boss was asked why the company did not seek to acquire Irish wind energy group Airtricity when it was put on the blocks recently.
"We didn't buy Airtricity because it was too expensive," he explained.
He added that ESB was late into wind and renewable energy because, when the market was being opened up to competition over the past decade, it was felt that the State-owned company was too dominant.
"There was a view at the time that we should not be investing in the renewables sector," said Mr McManus.
With ESB's market share shortly to be reduced to below 40 per cent, he said "this field is now open to us to make investments and this is what we intend to do".
