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The Irish Independent has reported that the Commission
for Energy Regulation (CER) chairman - Tom Reeves - has volunteered
that his organisation would facilitate a nationwide debate
on the issue of nuclear power in a bid to come up with a solution
to the country's pending energy crisis.
Mr Reeves told the Oireachtas Committee on Economic Regulatory
Affairs that the need to find alternative fuel sources to
meet future energy needs is even greater now, as neither wind
power or any other renewable energy sources will satisfy demand.
"Nuclear technology has made enormous advances over recent
years and operates to very high standards now. The big issue
for Ireland is their size - they need to be smaller and more
efficient" - Mr Reeves said. "If you want a plant by 2020,
then you had better start now because of the level of objections."
Referring to the issue of climate change, Mr Reeves said
that some action is needed to tackle the problem of growing
emissions. "We are going to have to do something. A nuclear
debate would be very worthwhile" - he said.
Mr Reeves told the Committee that, while facilitating such
a debate "is not part of our core function", his office would
be willing to do so. He added that Ireland was already importing
a tiny amount of nuclear power via the Northern Ireland-Scotland
interconnector.
However, he went on to explain that the power supplied from
Scotland was no different to any other electricity. "The nuclear
power is used to generate steam, which is used to generate
electricity. It is not nuclear electricity - it is derived
from nuclear power."
Nuclear power satisfies around 0.17pc of electricity demand
in Ireland - all of it derived from the UK grid via
the interconnector, according to data supplied to The Irish
Independent by the Energy Regulator's office.
Based on the peak demand during winter months of about 4,800MW,
this would mean that the equivalent of about 8MW - enough
to power a medium-sized town - is derived from nuclear energy.
Mr Reeves also told the committee that his office was close
to the roll-out of a pilot project to test the environmentally-friendly
'smart metering' technology. This is an expensive technology,
he said - and, while there is no problem adapting new homes,
the cost of updating meters in two million existing homes
has proven a stumbling block to its introduction.
Italy is the only country in the EU to have introduced the
new meters. Smart meters can tell customers when power is
cheapest - allowing them to amend their consumption patterns
to take advantage of lower rates. It would also allow customers
to sell power back to the grid, assuming they generated surplus
power from their own micro-generator, for instance.
Source - The Irish Independent
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