With recent Brexit polls in the UK showing the Leave side just ahead, I wonder what this will mean for the North South Interconnector project. Should UK leave the EU, then Northern Ireland will be free to decide how they deal with their generation capacity shortage themselves. Currently, EU Regulations are forcing restrictions on fossil fuel plant in Northern Ireland and diverting investment to unreliable renewables. Once outside the EU, NI could free themselves from these restrictions and simply build whatever conventional generation capacity is required to fill their capacity shortage.
Under these circumstances, the € 286 million interconnector project would be lying idle most of the time. If anything, Ireland would be importing the cheaper electricity from NI, not the other way around as is the current intention.
The justifications for this project are seriously undermined in the event of Brexit.
Very little wind generated electricity will be transmitted over the North South Interconnector what ever happens. It is a total waste of money
ReplyDeleteI attended Eirgrid's public consultation in Kingscourt in late 2013. They told me the interconnector was needed because coal burning power stations were to be closed in Northern Ireland due to EU rules on emissions. I asked them how the power would be replaced? they said it would be replaced by wind energy. I asked what would happen when the wind was not blowing, which amounted to well over half of the time. They said it would then be replaced by power from the Republic. I asked how that power would be produced? They replied, it will be replaced by fossil fuel power. I asked would that be produced by coal and they replied it would be partly, the rest from other fuels. So coal is being generators closed down in Northern Ireland to be replaced by coal from the Southern Ireland. It doesn't make sense.
ReplyDeleteYes, it really dons't make sense. What make sense their is that their might be hidden agenda that few will be beneficial for the project.
DeleteThe desire to link Northern and Southern Ireland electrically may have been the only decent motivation for this project. However it runs through an arbitrarily chosen corridor of farm land and dwellings which was sure to cause fierce resistance. In the end of the day the Strategic Environmental Assessment directive was by passed for this plan and the public are now aware of that. It all part of the corruption which the heavily subsidised renewable energy bonanza was sure to generate.
ReplyDeleteJust consider the waste of public money that oral hearing is in Carrickmacross. What other public project would generate such opposition. There is no SEA done on 2 of the 3 reasons for building it. The application should never have been validated
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