Does Irish offshore wind have a credibility problem?

The first live reNEWS Podcast recorded at Wind Energy Ireland Offshore 2026 in Dublin. Editor Stephen Dunne interviews Statkraft wind and solar SVP Kevin O'Donovan about the current state of offshore wind in Ireland.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Uh welcome to the reading content. It's me, Stephen Dom.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Hello, everybody, everybody, welcome to this editor loving green content. I'm Stephen Domin on the editor of the green. I'm done in here by somebody who needs no introduction, really. This is Slackcraft European wind and solar SVP Kevin O'Donovan. Kevin, you've had many great achievements, but how does it rank to be the first ever guest on the live podcast?

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Well, I just got to preface that by saying I was hoodwinked into this because Stephen has been looking for me to do a podcast with a while and he had all these great ideas, and they didn't kind of come to pass. And then he said, I'll talk with Deirdre Kingston, our head of comms. I've got a plan, I think we'll do something. And then the next thing I'm told, oh yeah, we're doing the podcast, but there's going to be a few hundred people in the room with us. So I'll let you know how it feels afterwards.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Well, like a lot of people here will know you and being in trenches with you over the years. But some of our listeners might not know you. So give us a bit of background and tell us something about you we don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Okay, I've been developing renewables for 26 years now. Um and uh yeah, I'm I'm I'm responsible in Stackcraft for I'm on our European management team, but directly responsible for the day-to-day business in UK and Ireland. Um, and obviously um I've been through all the technologies in Ireland and all the highs and lows and highs and lows, which uh unfortunately I think is just the the nature of the renewable sector and is also a little bit the nature of renewables in Ireland where you uh you need to develop a bit of patience and uh maybe to temper your reaction when things are good and also temper your reaction when things are bad. Unfortunately, I'm good at neither of those, so I'm continuously stressed and giving out. But anyway, we'll try not to give out too much today. Maybe the thing people don't know about me actually is I worked on the EIS and photomontages of the very first offshore wind farm in Ireland, Arc Love Bank, in the early 2000s. Wow. So uh that's not something people would know about.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Well, you still look pretty old. Thanks. Uh I asked the Wind Energy Ireland crowd and Deirdre at Stackcraft if we could do this a bit like the Graeme Norton show where we'd have a few beers and maybe it might loosen Kevin up a bit, but uh unfortunately I got shot down at that. So maybe to start us up and loosen you up a bit, Kevin. We might do a little quickfire round uh and have a few questions now. Honest answers only, okay? So onshore wind or offshore wind?

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Just because I've been at it longer, I'll say onshore wind. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

I didn't pick the right guest. Um Ryan or Darren O'Brien?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

I mean, I was speaking with Noel earlier, uh, Minister O'Brien's speech was very good, I think. Uh obviously there's some things we'll want to discuss in a minute about maybe what wasn't said, but I think overall uh Minister O'Brien is my choice there.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Element Power or Stackcraft? Oh.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Yeah, yeah. I suppose for people who don't know, Element Power was a company I was involved in prior to Stackcraft buying Element Power. Sentimentality will kick in here and say Element Power.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

And then the million dollar, the million dollar question. For those who haven't guessed yet, Kevin's a cork man. You know, we're going to the home of Guinness tonight, right? So, Guinness or Murphy's? Oh, it's it's Murphy's. You better bring a few cans with you tonight, so so we better get into it before we get into trouble. Listen, you can put your questions in in the normal way via Slido and the C event app, and we'll get to them if we have time later. Kevin, to start us off, we better react to what the minister had to say. Uh he talked about delivery over the next four or five years, and he talked about the big picture out into the next decade with the DMAPs and so on. I mean, as we sit here today in 2026, what's your view of the big picture and what's your immediate reaction to the minister's comments?

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Well, well, I he started very strong on the need for uh delivery, and we're in a, I think he called it at the end as well, a delivery phase. And that's really, really key. But the blunt piece from me is that if we don't deliver the phase one projects in a reasonable timeline, well, everything else is not really going to deliver anything. Um, when you think of it, you've you've got the phase one projects and and now Tanua, um, they're the best sites for fixed platform uh offshore in Ireland. There isn't some nirvana of water that none of us have discovered that is like 20 meters depth and has a perfect uh grid connection into a connection point where there's loads of capacity to take that power. So if we cannot deliver the phase ones, which you know, in general, I would say probably the the majority of the lead offshore uh companies uh in Europe, then who's going to look at doing uh future sites and looking at future Dmap areas and all that? So so so I think the minister was trying to outline a big long-term picture, but the focus really needs to move to that delivery of phase one, and that's why I guess it's pillar number one in in the WEI's uh offshore plan. But I I really think we need to move from saying we want to do it to actually addressing what's delaying getting it done.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Are you concerned that that any of the resources that are being expended, whether it be D maps or or you know 2030 onwards, that that that's coming at the expense of dealing with delivery now and dealing with the phase ones?

SPEAKER_00 6:14

Yeah, I I think it is. I don't think there's any way around that. I think there's a hell of a lot of focus uh being taken on delivering uh a long-term solution and so forth. And like if you think of uh let's say when the all res one auction was set up, the idea of that was to do some things fast to get projects delivered quickly. Um and I think we still need that attitude for phase one, and I think we moved away a little bit from it. So whether it's designing the grid, whether it's dealing with the planning, whether it's dealing with um kind of that that just supply chain and delivering uh uh um an offshore sector long term, like that focus needs to be super, super concentrated in my mind on the phase ones.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

So on phase ones, I mean, and on delivery. When I first started writing about wind, you and everybody else in this room battered me over the head to say you need lots of things to go right, but you need three things in particular. You need planning, you need grid, and you need route to market, right? So let's drill into this on the phase ones. On planning, I mean I looked it up this morning in your project, Nisa. Uh, I think next month will be two years before the board. Uh uh last year you got a request to say basically submit another plan and application. Uh what's going on in the planning system, and uh you know what's your sense of it in terms of frustration?

SPEAKER_00 7:51

I mean, what what's going on with it is what's been going on with our planning system for quite a few years now. And and um there there's a few ways of of looking at this. Um so first of all, um the planning uh system with the applications having to go into uh well it was on board planola when the application originally went in on commission planola now, had there was some engagement, but it was basically zero discussion about the projects itself. Like under the old kind of SID uh planning process. Actually, the people you speak to in the board about the SID pre-application phase aren't allowed to be involved in the decision making post uh when the application is submitted. So so there was a lot of enthusiasm that uh on board Panola at the time would somehow magically speed up their timelines to make decisions faster. And for offshore, the plan was to make a decision within 12 months. Well, as you say, we're two years later now, uh, and our FI response is is going in in the next few weeks. Um and I know this morning Garrett spoke about Oriel, they're getting their one in earlier this year, and they now have a September decision date, and that will be fantastic if that happens. But if you look at what's happened so far, there's an application submitted with zero engagement. Uh, and that's really alien, I would say, is particularly let's say look at the UK, where you have really detailed engagement beforehand and other markets. So we had to almost, you know, answer the exam question without having sort of any parameters on it at all. And that's why, you know, we published a picture of the van we had to hire to deliver the bloody planning application. It was 10,000 pages plus of a of a dis of a application. And and then ACP reviewed it and came back with a 45-page. I don't know how many questions were in the 45 pages, but it was like a lit review of the approaches you can take to uh consenting and assessing and surveying offshore wind farms from around the world. And now we've had to put another 10,000 pages in um to the system. Uh and I still don't have confidence that ACP has got up to the point where they really want to move forward and make a decision here. So I welcome that they're talking about a four-month timeline, but um I I really will have to see it to believe it.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

What responsibility do you you guys, the phase one developers, have for this? Because you know, you guys could look at what's going on internationally and could have submitted a lot of this material perhaps up front. So they would possibly argue that we couldn't make a ruling on these this paperwork. So do you guys bear any of the responsibility?

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Well, think of it. So you had the phase one developers who I think are probably pretty representative of the lead companies involved in delivering offshore across Europe. Um and then you had all the consultants working for them, who I think again would be fairly representative of the lead consultants doing this work in Europe and with all that expertise. And we went a step beyond what they would normally do in any other jurisdiction. Um, and as I say, 10,000 pages in a van going in. And then we got this just lit review kind of response back, which was just, oh, look at any other thing we can think of. So I I don't think there's much blame at the door of the phase ones and this. Uh we have offshore wind farms, some of the older ones actually, in the Irish Sea already, 10 years, 15 years, whatever, uh up and down the uh west coast of the UK. Uh to act like this is some new technology that hasn't been done anywhere, and to not uh learn from what's been applied uh successfully in the UK market, um, given it's the same waters, uh I think that's unacceptable.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

What about the public acceptability point around the planning system? Uh I was talking to someone earlier uh and they said as soon as they start seeing turbines going up in Dublin Bay and in Wicklow Bay, where I'm from, uh there'll be murder. I mean, what's your sense of that? You've been through the onshore world where 10 years ago we had perhaps an energy minister who couldn't even say the name onshore wind for fear of a backlash. What's your sense in offshore of that piece and how it fits into planning?

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Yeah, I mean, just to preface it, I remember going to a wedding in Westmead in about 2015, and it was my wife's friend that were invited us to their wedding. She said, Kevin, you cannot tell these people what you do. So I've been there with that. We learned a hugely valuable lesson that time. And the lesson is if local communities find out about offshore projects or any new infrastructure, through the media, through big, glossy sort of announcements, even through politicians or ministers, they will straight away take a very negative view on it. But if you respect and engage with them first and talk through and say, look, you know, this area is generally suitable for offshore. We we do the same with our onshore projects, and you uh go through why you're there, what's been considered, and then say, look, you know, this is something that does need to go ahead. The people are way, way further ahead than let's say the politicians or even media can be about this. It's actually generally a pretty good acceptance these days. Um and and actually they're more interested in, well, when's it going to happen? And what's the benefit for us locally, and how are you going to manage during construction or whatever? So so, like that early engagement and working true actually does work. There will always be people who have an issue with things. We know that for any any type of development. But at this stage, now what we're finding with our project is people are getting a bit annoyed with us. They're like, You've been talking about this thing for years. Are you ever going to just do it? And and uh I know people can kind of say, Oh, yeah, turbines will be visible from Dublin or God forbid from Wicklow. Um, I I hey there's been offshore wind turbines pretty close to the Wicklow coast for 20 years. I haven't heard many people kind of say there's major, major objections or issues with it. So I don't think there'll be murder when turbines go up. I think actually people will say, well, this is part of Ireland having to go on the journey it goes. And you know, we need to communicate, communicate, communicate. And it's energy security, it's price stability, it's not having to have these fossil fuel crises every five years, spiky our prices and leading to all the issues we're seeing. Um, so you know, I think I think the public are way more ahead, and as long as we respectfully engage with them early, then I think it will lead to good outcomes and generally a positive reaction. And even Garrett's uh point about uh Oriol and the limited amount of submissions they got on their further information, I think that just shows that the public are ahead of us on this, I think, in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

On the second part of the trifecta, then it's it's grid. Um, I'm not an electrical engineer, but as I understand it, the grid connections cannot be spanked for various reasons because of the really high specs that are being insisted upon by Air Grid. Air Grid got its knuckles wrapped last year by the regulator, the CRU, over the issue. It was supposed to have decided and arranged this and sorted it out by February, I think. We heard this morning that it's still going through the process. Can you give us a steer on that from the developer side and what that looks like and tell us, you know, how this needs to get sorted out?

unknown 16:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

So, first of all, what AirGrid have been asked to do is huge. And um, you know, I have a lot of sympathy for them being asked to go from zero to a hundred miles per hour. Um and to be honest, they're still somewhere between the zero and a hundred miles per hour. Um, yeah, maybe maybe some of the other phase one uh representatives here might have a view around that. It probably mightn't be that much further to the 100 miles, it might be more to the the the slow start still. But but like um, you know, we we we have a challenge with building grid connections in Ireland anyway. I've been doing it onshore for a long time. We do spec to a very high level, it leads to more expensive renewable energy in Ireland. Our grid connection costs are higher. Part of that is our system security, we're a smaller island grid, so when we connect in at 200 kV uh or 220, sorry, um, that is different maybe to doing it in Germany or or or somewhere else. But at the moment, the connection agreements and the asset uh purchase agreements are just not workable. So it is quite serious, and um, you know, I think we really have to get AirGrid and uh phase one projects and the regulator all working together in the room to actually say, look, what can be delivered? And you know, we we touched, I think uh Garrett spoke about this morning about some sort of mandate for parties to engage together. And there is this sometimes reluctance, I think, for maybe the regulator or air grid to feel like, well, oh, we should bring industry in here and all work together. But that needs to change. But but why is it not workable?

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Because you know, the TSO led delivery of offshore grid is well used throughout Europe, tenets in Germany, the Netherlands, Orti, and France. So what's the problem?

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Well, when do they start doing those? Was it 2000? Was it something early like that? Um and and as I say, AirGrid are being asked to start from the year 2000 in the year 2022 or three, and get up to speed immediately. So I think that's part of it, and resources and expertise takes time to build up. It it's a similar issue in ACP. Uh the minister, if he was here, would say, Oh, you know, I approved when he was in the Department of Housing Local Government a hundred extra resources for uh uh onboard panola at the time, and it was like I think there were only like only 200 people in there up to that or something like that. So it was a really substantial increase. But as I know myself, if I get some uh additional resource budget allocation from my my uh uh colleagues uh in in Oslo, it takes time to hire people with that right expertise. It then takes time for them to get into the system of how the organization wants to do things, and it takes a while before they actually have the confidence then to be able to go and and and make decisions and move uh in a fast and efficient manner. And I think that's the the key thing we see happening with both Commission Planada as the further information showed. It showed us of a group that we're still trying to figure out what's important or not, and I think it's a little bit of the engagement we have on the grid side as well, is like there's a huge amount of things to be done here and it has to be spec'd properly and all of this, and and it's just slowing down the delivery.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

I mean, we're seeing a bit of light at the end of the tunnel on planning. Do you see any light at the end of the tunnel on grid connections?

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Well, well, in fairness, uh Ergood through Lim Ryan this morning spoke about getting the connection agreements out by the end of the year. Um, and you know, there's the asset transfer piece as well as the connection agreement, they both have to be investable and and deliverable. So um if if that timeline could be achieved, then you know, I think that's uh that would be light at the end of the tunnel as well. But but look, to date uh I wouldn't have a lot of confidence until it actually happens. A bit like on Commission Panola, I mean the chair of uh or sorry, the CEO of on Commission Panola said we will make a decision four months after the uh consultation is finished on the AFIs, and that's what they've done with their September 21st date for Oriol. But can you blame me as someone who's got projects that are in the planning system onshore waiting for decisions four years later or longer for being a little bit skeptical? And I hope I'm wrong, but you know, we have to be realistic here, and that's why, again, it's all good to talk about all the different things that uh are planned, Dmaps, future, but like we have to get over the line with these first projects. And if you think of it, why why why is that such a focus? Yes, I'm selfish here in talking about our our own project in phase one, the NISA project. But actually, the supply chain, I'm sure there's some representatives there. If they're really being open here, they're not really going to commit to putting a lot of resources and time into developing. The supply chain in Ireland, until there's four or five projects that have planning approval that can then engage with the supply chain and say, hey, we now know we're going to be delivering at some stage in in the next number of years. So that's why it's so critical if we cannot get those projects through the system and approved and the grid uh the final details actually finalized, the supply chain won't won't have the confidence to invest in us. And because they will have to invest in us, and uh that's gonna take time.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

A slightly different question on grid before we close it out on grid. Are you concerned about the curtailment issue that we're gonna have? Because yes, the phase ones will be compensated as I understand it, but I looked it up this morning and curtailment last month, I think, was 19%. In the UK, the right wing parties like reform are making a big play around the amount of wasted energy and the cost to the taxpayer ultimately. In Ireland, we're gonna bring on three, four gigawatts of additional power, you know, onto what is already a really struggling grid. Is that gonna become a bit of a public perception problem for offshore wind and how can the industry navigate that?

SPEAKER_00 23:25

It's gonna be a public perception problem, it's gonna be a technical problem. I mean, there'll get to a point where the curtailment is so high. Just how are you even going to go ahead and build projects? So I think that's again why I'm so strong of that we're we have a hell of a lot of work to do on where we are at the moment with phase ones and with renewables in general in Ireland. Um our onshore wind farms last year had about 13-14% curtailment. Our solar projects are uh actually experiencing curtailment today. That's crazy. You know, it's it's that's free resource that is there, it's not being used. Um so um it's probably a real credibility issue for us to start talking about gigawatts and gigawatts of additional renewables coming from whether it be offshore or onshore, if we don't deal with that problem. And it whether it's the public perception piece or somewhere else, if something doesn't make sense, it will get caught out somewhere. So I suppose with with the stackcraft hat on, uh I I always like to say the way we try and look at things is like it's we're we gotta take a system integration approach, we gotta take a whole of system approach. And it's not enough to say, well, look, there's a lovely uh uh Dmap and there's a lovely process we can go through. Um it just is there's no capacity for it, and the grid will need some massive changes to be able to take that. We we we just can't kind of keep going in that direction. So so for me, the key thing we need to be looking at is how can we help our system take more renewables? Now we've got to focus on that really as quickly. And like you look at let's say the UK example, so we have a number of wind farms up in Scotland, and you know, we get paid fairly significant uh um payments for um not being able to produce the power. And they're the UK government are very focused on that because they know that issue, as you say, it's uh coming into focus a lot. Um, and and I think one of the key things we need to put a lot more prioritization on is rollout of long duration energy storage. Um we're developing a pumped hydro project now up and out of Loch Ness in an area that has a lot of wind around it, and the system benefits from doing storage is really, really significant. So in Ireland, and I spoke with with Liam again this morning in in Airgrid Liam Ryan about that you know we need to move way faster on our long duration energy storage. I think the plan is to do a two to three hundred megawatt first round auction maybe next year. We should be rolling out a couple of gigawatts, we should have a gigawatt of an auction next year, we should have a gigawatt the year after. We should aim to bring those couple of gigawatts on by 2030. And actually that's going to be transformational because if you uh have that level of storage and it needs to be at that six, eight, ten hour range, then you will dramatically change the curtailment problem that's there. But you will also actually facilitate more renewables getting on quicker. Um and you know, I think that rollout of the grid infrastructure, which uh was touched on earlier on this morning as well, where we do have to build new grid infrastructure, um, but that LDES will be equally as important. And if we don't start delivering on that, then someone needs to tell me how we're going to connect more than five gigawatts of offshore wind uh in Ireland.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

We've dealt with planning grid. The third part of the trifecta is route to market. Uh NISA and the other Ores One projects were awarded contracts in 2023, averaging 86 quid or thereabouts per megawatt hour. The one thing that I'm asked constantly when I'm talking to European developers and supply chain players, when they hear the Irish accent, they say, What's the story with Ireland? And are those ORES contracts actually deliverable? You know, we've seen a lot of projects that were awarded contracts in various jurisdictions back in 01, 02, 03 walk away from those types of contracts. Some would argue better contracts than the ORES contracts. What's your view of that deliverability question under the Ores?

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, if I could actually know where I stand, then I could tell you the answer. But right now I'm not sure when I'm going to get plenty. I'm not sure I have a grid uh connection agreement and asset transfer that will work from an investment perspective. Uh and and have a supply chain that's a bit cautious of talking to us. So you anyone from the supply chain, I know you're very polite and courteous to us, but I can see it in your eyes. You're like, look, come back to me when you have planning permission and a real real timeline for delivering your project. So I think that's the challenge, like, is the thing is still moving. So I actually can't even answer that question properly yet, you know. And uh look, I think you know, we need we need this next six months to be, as the minister was trying to aim at, to have planning decisions coming out. Like if we have three or four projects with permits in their hand this time next year, then there's a business for the supply chain to engage with. And and it's only at that stage we'll actually start to see, okay, what can we deliver this for? Um, and you know, I mean there's um there's lots of twists and turns on that. So I think that's still an open question. We need that certainty, and then we can go and answer that question better.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

So to tie this up and going back to the three legs of the stool, uh, you know, any one of those issues traditionally on a project could torpedo a project, a problem on it. In offshore, we're now talking about a situation where we don't have planning yet, we have a vast uncertainty around the grid connections and a lack of clarity around whether Orez is deliverable, and you know, they're probably my words, not yours, but someone mentioned, and I think you mentioned the word credible. The minister talked about delivery in the next few years. How is are we going to deliver these offshore projects given the challenges on all three points?

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Well, it's a bloody wobbly stool at the moment, isn't it? Sitting on the ground. Uh so so, yeah, like it's unfortunately it's really boring, it's having to work through each part of it. And I think we need to make the offshore sector in Ireland boring. We've been too sort of excited about the huge territorial waters that we have, and and um probably not enough focus on actually what does it take to deliver the fixed platform projects that are there already. Um, so so look, um, I just hope that by this time next year, with permitted projects, with a viable grid design and connection agreement, and and and that we can then actually say, well, this is what we can do to deliver these. So it's boring, but it's like step by step. And as I say, I think we need to be careful as an industry not to be always focused on the future opportunity and putting lines around maps uh uh in the future. That that's fine to kind of give some indication of the long-term direction we're trying to go in. But if you've got the best offshore developers in Europe, with what are the best sites in Ireland. I mean, we all had a free chance, not free chance, but we've all you know had whatever part of the waters in the IRC that we wanted to look at. Um if we can't deliver them, then you have to have a question mark about everything else. So that's why the focus deliverability of the phase ones, that's where it is, and planning grid key ones.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

How how do you do this? Like uh and this is a question for all the phase ones, but you're under the microscope. So, I mean, how you have to go back to Oslo in your case, and you have to sit in front of an investment committee who are already sceptical, probably, about offshore wind in other markets. How do you make the case to them that these projects you've been developing for years and had promises of a year for a planning permission and a grid connection and a water tie aura? So, I mean, how how do you make that case to these people? And you know, will it come to a point where the bubble might burst on phase one? And we're already seeing some signs that some developers are just not in it for the long haul.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Yeah. Um, so uh yes, it is getting harder and harder. Um you know, I I I I suppose someone like Stackcraft, um, we're across all the technologies in the country, and um, you know, I suppose one of the reasons we did try and diversify across all the technologies is that uh they all hit their difficult spells, and as I like to joke with the team, if someone's giving me bad news, I just ring someone from one of the other technologies to give me a little bit of good news to keep us on an even balance. So I think you know, from a StarCraft perspective, we probably look at it that way, and then you know, um we obviously have our partners, CIP and the NISA project and the other uh phase one developers, I think a lot of it is they have a portfolio of projects across Europe or globally or whatever, and they're balancing them all the time. And and it is coming to a point where, as I say, if we can't go back to the my boring point around getting a planning decision, uh if we can't show tangible progress there, it is getting to a point where people will say, Well, that's not it. And my point today is that, well, if that happens, guys, the whole thing is in jeopardy, you know. So so um hence my focus on that phase one piece.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

We've got a minute left according to these screens. I have two things. Maybe you could get the slido first and we might throw a curveball at Kevin. Before we do that, we've been a bit negative, I would say, partly because that's my job. Can you give us something, some green shoot, some positively, give us something to go home and have a pint later on in the storehouse and not be crying into it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Well, well, well, sorry, I suppose that um as I say, I've been doing renewables for for for quite a long time. Uh this is normal. Um, and maybe what hurt us a little bit with offshore, I think, for the first few years of when it really started to get a lot of interest and focus um uh a few years ago, we we probably simplified the challenge of delivering it. We took a lot of assumptions saying, well, we can make this happen quick when like we were starting from uh a standing start. So I would say what's happening here is normal with development and the risks are high, and it's always a challenge. And look, every conference you go to, no matter where you are, we're in Madrid at the Wind Europe one a few weeks ago, uh, where there was a a roving reporter uh going around the Ireland stand trying to listen into all conversations, which was quite quite uh interesting.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

But um uh don't the government had a whiskey reception. There's gonna be Lou slips after whiskey. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Oh, don't be negative about the whiskey. That was good fun to have it there. And again, it was good to hear before. But but um no, I I suppose it's it's a case that uh you know there is this sort of resilience needed to actually deliver these, and it's just gonna take time. But the positive I would say is like when we get that first offshore project going, and let's say we get to four or five gigawatts of offshore wind by 2040. I'd be quite happy with that. That mightn't chime very well with our wind plan or with what other people's aspirations are. But let's say we get there at some stage with the five gigawatts of the offshore and uh um eight, nine gigawatts of of onshore, um uh eight gigawatts of solar, and in my opinion, we should be three, four gigawatts of of uh longer duration storage, uh grid stability projects up and running to keep the grid stable with a zero carbon technology, but then 80 to 90 percent of our entire electricity supply is going to be coming from our own energy that we own and control in this country. That would be transformational. And I think we shouldn't focus too much on the part C of the honours maths exam question of how do we get to net zero? If this country, in at some stage, hopefully in the first half of the 2030s, kind of 80% of its power coming from renewables, it will transform the place. And you know, have a look at Spain at the moment. It's incredible what's happened there. So we've all had an increase in the cost of our electricity, particularly in Ireland and UK, and we're at elevated price levels anyway. In fact, it maybe hasn't jumped as much as people would have thought when the uh Iran war broke out, and some of that in my mind was because we already have renewables there helping us keep that price down and not be dependent on gas to set the price all the time. But in Spain, where they're now 60% plus of renewables, and gas is not setting that price all the time. Because of that, we can actually achieve that. So every gigawatt hour of onshore, offshore solar that we get on is going to get us closer to that more than it's more stable in electricity pricing, and for anyone who's still cares lower emissions.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

Okay, I think we've uh gone over time, so uh I think we'll have to leave it there. Can you please show your appreciation for Kevin O'Donnell?

SPEAKER_02 37:52

The Renews podcast was produced and edited by me, Stephen Dunn. Click subscribe wherever you get your podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. For more exclusive market intelligence on the renewable sector, see renews.biz.