Temporary and floating nature of LNG gas facility may make it politically sellable to environmentalists

The security of energy supply review isn’t all about gas – far from it – but from a political viewpoint there is no escaping from it.

In particular, it has to do with what part, if any, gas will play in providing backup energy, or storage.

The political faultlines of this were already evident before the Programme for Government was drawn up when the Green Party started to lay down its red lines.

The party was opposed to plans to locate a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in the Shannon Estuary. They argued it would prolong the reliance of the State on fossil fuels and, secondly, there was a likelihood that the gas being stored in liquid form would be fracked gas from the United States – a complete no-no for many of its activists.

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Much of that was being argued in the abstract until the extraordinary events of 2022 began to unfold. Now, all EU States are confronted not only with soaring prices but also with the possibility of energy shortages.

Ireland is an outlier in Europe in that it has no gas storage arrangements in place to deal with such unexpected contingencies. But if gas is a solution to mitigate such shock events, it is also a problem – especially to the Green Party and most Opposition parties. At the same time, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil TDs based in the Shannon area have argued strongly in favour of the LNG plant in the Shannon Estuary.

It was against that background that the London-based economic consultancy, CEPA was asked to identify potential shocks to the security of energy supply in Ireland between now and 2030. It was also asked to identify the best options to mitigate the impacts of these shocks.

CEPA began its research before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and it widened its research to include the impact of a full suspension of all Russian pipeline exports of natural gas to European markets.

The report published on Monday does include gas solutions as two of its shortlist of options for Minister for Energy and Climate Change Eamon Ryan. That, however, would back foot his party, the Greens, too much.

The first option is what is called ‘strategic gas storage’. This would be State-run and temporary in nature and would only operate during periods in which there was a material risk of demand disruptions. In other words it would not be permanent or commercial.

The second option is a floating LNG terminal, which would operate only as a backup facility. It is LNG but, CEPA point out, it would not be permanent and would be leased rather than owned. This, it concludes, means there will not be a long-term commitment to gas dependence.

Government sources say that neither option, if pursued, would use fracked gas.

More importantly, within that narrow political prism, a commercial fixed LNG terminal (such as the one planned for the Shannon Estuary) is not included as an option. Neither are any other gas solutions that are classified as either permanent or commercially-run.

The review will ease the path of the Government if it wishes to use some gas backup between now and 2030 if energy supplies are disrupted.

The CEPA review sets out five main shock scenarios and offers a range of options to the Government to mitigate against them.

The shock scenarios are: (extreme) weather events; electricity interconnector outage and weather events; gas interconnector outage and weather events: seven-day loss of gas imports from Britain: and 30-day loss of gas imports from Britain.

The mitigation options include additional electricity interconnection (including a second interconnector to France); more pumped hydro storage (such as the facility on Turlough Hill in Co Wicklow); a biomass plant; increased secondary fuel storage; indigenous renewable gas production and green hydrogen; and additional electricity storage batteries (a new facility opened in Shannonbridge, Co Offaly earlier this month).