Ireland’s Energy Minister Pat Rabbitte TD will today meet with the UK’s Energy Minister Charles Hendry MP to discuss a potential inter-governmental agreement around the trading of electricity, particularly electricity that is generated from renewables.
Rabbitte explained that Ireland has renewable energy resources that are surplus to requirements, and would therefore be open to an agreement whereby the countries could trade the additional energy. This kind of agreement would also mean that Irish generators of both onshore and offshore renewable energy will be presented with a new market to service.
This news comes after the Irish energy infrastructure company Eirgrid yesterday held its first capacity auction for companies to bid to trade energy when the East West Interconnector, the underground and undersea link connecting Ireland and the UK, is completed later this year.
“Increased interconnection to the UK offers us the opportunity to access a much larger market in future. In the short-term there are opportunities for onshore wind and biomass development but, as technologies develop and become more commercially deployable, in time we will also see additional developments,” Rabbitte explained.
“If we can develop projects at sufficient scale, there is also the opportunity to see increased job potential not just during the construction phases but in component manufacturing and in the operations and maintenance area.”
On Friday Rabbitte will be travelling to Scotland to meet with the British Irish Council.
