Ireland secured an exemption from European Union plans to trigger mandatory reductions in the use of gas in case of shortages as part of a deal reached in Brussels on Tuesday.
Energy ministers for the 27 struck an agreement on how to jointly cope with potential shortages as Russia tightens gas supply to Germany and a series of eastern and central EU states.
As part of the deal, Ireland will be exempt from a system under which EU states would be obligated to reduce their gas use if a shortage alert was triggered by the agreement of five countries.
The Republic was granted a derogation along with fellow island nations Cyprus and Malta, because they are not directly connected to the EU grid.
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“We got the derogation that we wanted,” Minister for Climate and Energy Eamon Ryan told The Irish Times as he left the meeting in Brussels.
“We’re not physically connected into the European grid. We’re not reliant on Russian gas. And I think that recognition of that is important.
“If there’s a mandatory reduction of 15 per cent, then it won’t apply in our case.”
Nevertheless, Ireland will still voluntarily do as much as it can to reduce gas use and to find alternatives.
Mr Ryan said it was necessary to cut gas use to protect households and industry from soaring gas costs, with markets indicating that prices may reach 10 times their historical level this winter.
“For households for industry for power generation, we have to do everything we can to try and reduce our exposure to that,” he said.
Information campaigns will be rolled out encouraging people to be efficient in their energy use, while the state will seek to accelerate the rollout of heat pumps, solar panels, and insulation for buildings.
In his intervention to the meeting of energy ministers, Mr Ryan said Ireland was in discussions with the agriculture industry about the production of biomethane.
This would generate an alternative to natural gas at a lower price and provide a “diversified income to Irish farmers”, Mr Ryan told The Irish Times.
Pressure was amped up to reach a deal after Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom cut the gas flow through the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 20 per cent, citing technical reasons.
The development, which may slow efforts for EU countries to refill their gas storage facilities ahead of winter, was slammed as politically motivated by EU leaders who see it as a way to exert pressure on the EU to reduce support for Ukraine.
The European Commission warned member states that a potential total cut of Russian gas supplies was possible at any moment.
“Winter is coming and we don’t know how cold it will be, but what we know for sure is Putin wil continue to play his dirty games in misusing and blackmailing by gas supplies,” Czech industry and trade minister Jozef Síkela told journalists.
“This is something we have to prepare our households and economies for and we have to protect them,” he added. “We have to reduce the dependencies on Russian supplies as soon as possible.”
The agreement on reducing gas use was reached unusually swiftly, after the European Commission unveiled the proposal one week ago.
Member states pushed for a range of opt-outs and derogations to cater for their national circumstances, and there were questions over whether the compromise had been watered down too much to achieve the goal of reducing use by 15 per cent.
Nevertheless, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the move, calling it “a decisive step to face down the threat of a full gas disruption.”
“Thanks to today’s decision, Europe is now ready to address its energy security, as a Union,” she said.
[ Russia cuts gas deliveries to Europe via Nord Stream 1Opens in new window ]
[ Exemption for Ireland expected as EU hammers out plan to slash gas useOpens in new window ]
