Senior Lecturer in Clean Energy Futures at University College Cork, Ireland-Fellow at the Payne Institute, Colorado School of Mines.
Ireland | Summer saw a record volume of electricity imports (625GWh in June) in the All-Island system. The commissioning of the 500MW Greenlink Interconnector this year has led to an increase in net imports, exceeding the previous record year of 2024. Interconnectors typically flow power from low-price to high-price markets, with the magnitude of flow influenced by the capacity of the interconnector, however price and volume effects can combine to reinforce flows. In Ireland’s case, lower-priced power and a higher volume of available power in the UK and Northwest Europe (notably France and Norway) are driving high volumes of flows into the UK and Ireland. Net imports of electricity are also a feature of the UK market, averaging about 15% of demand for 2025, with near-record levels set for July 2025. Imports of electricity into Ireland are environmentally beneficial because of the high domestic carbon content of electricity in Ireland relative to our neighbours (see research by UCC in comments), but increased imports raise concerns about energy security and the erosion of domestic supply. The power sector in Ireland has a legal national cumulative limit of 40 million tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution for the period 2021 to 2025. I estimate the sector will come close to the target but likely exceed it by 1 to 2 million tonnes. This overshoot will be carried forward to the next obligation period from 2026 to 2030. While the future political vision for the power sector in Ireland is to be a net exporter of electricity, the present and near-term outlook is to remain a significant net importer. According to SEAI, Ireland imported 25 times more electricity in 2024 than it exported and accounted for 14% of supply. The planned Celtic Interconnector to France, due in 2028, will increase net imports into Ireland. EDF has increased its provisional outlook for nuclear generation out to 2027, meaning higher volumes of lower-priced power will amplify imports into Ireland.
Unless Ireland can generate cheaper electricity than France (nuclear) and uk (gas) it’s very unlikely we will see net exports from Ireland. We conducted an economic review of potential for future interconnectors but economically they don’t stack up given the potential canibilsation of revenue for existing ICs. A further IC to Uk / France or Spain would seriously damage the economics of EastWest and others.
Ireland’s growing reliance on electricity imports underscores the urgent need to balance decarbonization gains with strengthened domestic generation and energy security strategies.
When we choose to import power from Britain and curtail wind power at the same time.. you know something isn't working and needs to be discussed. Emmisions produced in Britain's mix (including polluting gas & biomas and even UK's own high imports) are not accounted for in Irish imports. This gives the appearance of Ireland's imports having an "environmental benefit". We share the one environment, and one climate, so its just an illusion of lower emmisions in our own data Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Ireland
I don’t believe imports necessarily have the environmental benefits stated. It is based purely on price between GB and Ireland, not taking into account the source of generation. If there is high import then this can often result in high curtailment/constrained renewables as there is no room on the grid.
Where is Ireland on nuclear power? Westinghouse Electric Company Rolls-Royce SMR X-energy Nuclear power has to be part of Ireland's power supply. #AI #NuclearEnergy #SMR #MSR #Microreactors #FutureOfEnergy #DataCenters #Innovation #Sustainability
Yep, net export is in the cards Ireland goes all-in on its net-zero ambition: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/beos_ireland-netzero-energytransition-activity-7365022457512050689-1uIU
And the elephant in the room... Data centres. If someone could give me a breakdown of what the data centres are used for. AI isn't all useful, and certainly most streaming is nonsense, and even socially corrosive, but we don't ever talk about curtailing it. Why don't we have dispatch down on data, instead of on RE. At least one of our largest data centres could be attributed to porn. Perhaps one for tiktok. Another for 'funny fails'. Has AI taken over from Streaming or are we importing power for videos of cute kittens??
Scottish wind farms paid to switch off for more than a third of output https://share.google/OqCZj1tMk8Nh1f01D
Interconnectors are such an obvious terrorist target... we should focus on solar and energy storage which can remove most rural buildings in Ireland from the grid for 8+ months a year. That's what we're working on in Kiltealy 🌞
Senior Lecturer in Clean Energy Futures at University College Cork, Ireland-Fellow at the Payne Institute, Colorado School of Mines.
1mohttps://www.linkedin.com/posts/thinkingenergy_home-activity-7346461749878906881-4pUq?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAtLlGIBknZPiucU4poQ1frIn-nM6z_acas