The ESB may have problems securing emission licences from the Environmental Protection Agency for its existing stations, which may not comply with new regulations.

At the Energy Ireland '99 conference yesterday, Mr Tom Reeves, the incoming electricity regulator, said the Kyoto environmental protocol would have a major impact in the next 10 years and the electricity industry would have to carry a lot of the burden.

"It is not emissions licences for new electricity generating plants that will be the problem for the ESB but getting licences for existing facilities," he said.

However, an ESB spokeswoman said a well-established programme of environmental works was continuing and major capital investments had been made to ensure that each plant would comply with the new regulations.

Electricity companies have to apply for licences for gas-powered plants by September 4th, 2000, coal and oil by March 2001 and peat during 2002. Mr Reeves said that even though interconnection between electricity grids in Europe was taking a long time, fair trade in electricity across borders was vital. "The issues of whether customers or generators will pay for systems charges, what charge will be levied for connection to the grid, and whether countries whose grids are used as a conduit for transporting electricity between their EU partners get paid for acting as a conduit for it has to be addressed."

Delegates asked why there had as yet been no action on a North-South energy link. Mr Douglas McIldoon, director general for regulation of electricity and gas for Northern Ireland said: "Ireland, North and South, is in fact a single energy market but we have two different fiscal and regulatory regimes. I hope we can work to align the two regulatory regimes so Northern consumers are not disadvantaged as they are now."