Energy infrastructure

Again, the goal for 2030, is that we will generate about 80% of our electricity from renewables, mostly wind.

Yes, in 2030, we will still have our existing natural gas power plants. Mostly we won't use them, there will be many days when we generate more then 100% of our electricity needs with wind, exporting the excess over the interconnectors or generating green hydrogen and filling storage.

Of course there will be days like today, with little wind and as a result we will fire up the natural gas plants and of course import electricity over the interconnectors (more capacity then Hinkley Point C or roughly two Moneypoints in 2030) and generate power from hydro and storage and hydrogen, etc.

As a result, over a year, the amount of gas we use will fall drastically. Our carbon intensity will drop from 296 gCO2/kWh today to around 100 gCO2/kWh by 2030. A fantastic improvement from the 800 gCO2/kWh we produced in 2005, a 8 fold drop in just 25 years!

Then we will turn our attention to the next goal. To the 2050 goal, to get to net zero, to tackle that last 20%.

This will likely require a variety of technologies. More interconnectors, green hydrogen, smart grid/demand shedding, ng + ccs, maybe SMR's, various storage technologies, like compressed air, pumped hydro etc. It won't happen overnight, it will take 20 years to do (the next 28 years). It likely won't be a single technology, rather a combination of technolgies working together to achieve the goal.

We already export twice as much electricity over the interconnector to the UK as we import over it. It makes money for us.

As we greatly increase wind power and build the two new interconnectors (UK and France), we will likely see that 2:1 ratio increase significantly. We will export even more wind power and make more money from it. Today we are a very large net importer of energy, interconnectors + wind help us decrease that.

I don't get peoples negativity about interconnectors. Every country in mainland Europe has massive amounts of interconnectors to all their neighbours and are all part of the EU wide synchronous grid, the largest in the world.

Ireland is very much the odd man out in terms of interconnectors.

"Hydrogen turbines sound fine - but have the state actually confirmed this is the long term approach? Have they began to invest in them?"

Currently the focus is on our 2030 goals (80% renewables) and that is where government policy is currently focused. The focus of this policy seems to be mostly a combination of more onshore and offshore wind (mostly East coast), along with some small solar, battery, etc. projects, largely backed up by Natural Gas + Interconnectors.

Beyond that you have the 2050 goal of net zero. While the goal is clear, exactly which technologies will be used to achieve it aren't set out by government policy yet. And rightfully so, 28 years is a very long time in technology and it is far too early to place firm bets.

Most likely it will look something like, lots of Wind (onshore + offshore) backed up by X. Where X will likely be some a combination of hydrogen, CCS, batteries of different chemistries, liquid air storage, interconnectors.

The balance of the above technologies will come down to cost, which are the cheapest. They all work, the question is which will be the cheapest and best to partner with very cheap wind.

Of course, the above is just focused on government policy. We are starting to see companies around Europe starting to build offshore wind farms to generate green hydrogen on a purely commercial basis with no government support and little or no grid connection. As in wind has become so cheap, it is looking profitable for companies to use it to generate hydrogen to sell to governments and industry for power generation, transport, etc.