Power sharing back on the agenda???

Any chance that selling our excess energy to the Brits would lower prices over here?

Are you sure that picture is accurate? The cable is underground, and undersea, as far as I’m aware.

Kenny and Rabitte opening it? There must be a joke about how many politicians does it take to switch on an interconnector.

Shouldn’t Ireland strive to be self sufficient in ts energy requirements????

what Saudi Arabia is to oil, Ireland will be to renewable energy, More inter connectors please. When the wind blows hard in Ireland we have enough to supply ourselves. The UK are looking at us to supply them with juice, and apparently the Germans are pumping money for us to build a power line from Donegal to Cork to get off shore wind going

This will be good for both countries, Ireland can benefit from cheaper electricity from Nuclear power stations from the UK today. And in the future the UK can benefit from cheaper cleaner wind and wave energy Ireland can produce

The right way to go. A european energy grid is a good idea. The ability to move excess energy to where it’s needed and to be able to import it when your own demands are high and you can’t meet the demands. Btw there is no such thing as energy independence! There will always be a place where energy has to be imported. Think about it.

Long term the goal is to sell our excess wind power into the English grid, but we will also be buying from them (and what we buy will be more expensive per watt than what we sell). The main advantage we get is that it will allow us the capacity to increase our reliance on wind power without compromising our supply. One of the major disadvantages of wind power is that it is unreliable, whenever the wind drops, so in order to avoid brownouts we need other sources, hydroelectric is pretty handy because we can turn it on and off quickly, but we don’t have the capacity to power the entire country off it. Other options are pumped water stations, like Turlough Hill, where we just pump water up a hill when we have excess capacity and then let it flow back down when we need it, but needs a lot of land to run. So we need other sources, i.e. fossil fuels, but the problem with those is that they take a long time to start supplying electricity (they are all steam based, so it’s kinda like boiling a kettle), so if there is a sudden drop in wind power then we have blackouts until the power plants can take up the slack, in order to avoid this we have to keep the fossil fuel plants on even when we even when we don’t really need them.

The net result of all that is wasted electricity, and as the amount we generate from wind increases, the amount we waste increases linearly with it, inter-connectors give us an place to sell that waste as well as buy it when we need it, increasing our efficiency.

How much of a price increase has there been since this morning?

Rory mc ilroy interconnecter

Britain has been selling electricity for years now,, we are so behind with wind turbines, and sea turbines,, we will be buying loadsssssssssss from them,, another country ahead of itself on how to make money,,, we have so much energy that could be funding our hospitals , schools colleges but nope we would rather just pay politicians that rob us, than invest money that would pay our country, no wonder Germany on one side of us draining us and the British giving us power for a charge,,, Ireland we are laughing stock of the world, who next to want a chunk,, would they just not take our leaders,, we would be better off alone,, or get in some knowledgeable people to run a country not school teachers and lawyers that have never hired a person, only state pay,,, that’s all we have no one that is educated and street wise, just a bunch of leeches

So something smart like investing in providing really cheap insulation for every building in Ireland, and more solar where appropriate, is off the agenda in preference for large and massively expensive projects – surely renewable is going to give us more energy security? We could create jobs by employing people to do insulation and put solar panels at a cheap rate (current SEAI grant still leaves it quite expensive to do) on the roofs of most buildings in this country… And those crusties and wasters? There are many of us that are not crusties or wasters but who just care about stuff like our environment and the future of our children – I cannot for the life of me see why that is so reprehensible???

What a joke! One of the reasons cited for rising energy prices is to pay for this interconnector. So prices go up to pay for the interconnector then they announce that’s it’ll help bring down prices! I remember the same argument being put forward for rising the price of electricity in order to make it attractive to a potential buyer! So prices go up, no buyer!

we are friends electric