Energy crisis: ‘We will have a hard winter next year,’ committee told

The short-term outlook for the European energy crisis is “not great” with the Continent facing not just a difficult winter but possibly a couple of difficult years, an Oireachtas committee has heard.

There is “no easy solution” to the crisis in the short term, said Cillian O’Donoghue, director of policy with Eurelectric, the European electricity industry association.

“This is a big crisis, and this is a crisis that we expect to last,” he told the Joint Committee on European Union Affairs.

A shortage of gas arising from the Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to an “explosion” in the price of electricity, although households are being sheltered from much of this because of the forward-purchase of electricity.

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[ Euro zone economies have no choice but to tackle the supply shock together ]

European gas reserves that are available this winter will not be available next winter as they are usually filled with Russian gas, he told the committee. The energy price crisis is likely to last “at least eighteen months.”

Immediate responses to the crisis should include a reduction in consumption by consumers, with governments explaining why this is necessary, he said. It was also important that EU member states acted in solidarity with one another and did not introduce policies aimed at prioritising their own citizens.

The State is 86 per cent reliant on fossil fuels and spends approximately €1 million an hour importing these fuels, Dr Paul Deane, a senior research fellow at the Environmental Research Centre in University College Cork, told the committee.

He said Ireland was not responding to the energy crisis with the same “agility” as had been shown in response to the Covid pandemic.

“We have declared a climate emergency in Ireland, there is a war in Europe, and an associated energy crisis, yet the pace of energy infrastructure delivery and action in Ireland is at odds with these emergencies.”

“This crisis will endure,” he told deputy Seán Haughey of Fianna Fáil. “We will have a hard winter next year.”

Ireland “used to be the leader in offshore wind. Now we are back of the pack,” he said. The potential for wind energy was Ireland’s “greatest strength”.

Responding to Independent senator Lisa Chambers, Dr Deane said it was “incredibly disappointing” that Ireland was still 86 per cent dependent on fossil fuels. “We tell the world that we are green and clean, but we are not.”

In the short term, reduced energy use was the most important step that could be taken. “We are in a very serious situation here,” he said. “Time is not on our side.”

Referring to the advice earlier this year from Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan, that people take shorter showers, Dr Deane said electric showers are the appliance that uses the most electricity in many homes.

It was an important goal in the short term that people were given information about their energy use and how to reduce their energy bills.

Responding to deputy Robert Troy of Fianna Fáil, Mr O’Donoghue said the EU was devising a new measure that would prevent renewable energy proposals being held up at the planning stage for more than two years.

Renewable energy infrastructure that can be built in two years is being held up for up to ten years in the planning process, he said.

In response to the energy price crisis, the EU is seeking to reduce electricity use by ten per cent overall, and five per cent at peak hours.

“The five per cent peak reduction is challenging but doable,” Mr O’Donoghue said. “For households we need to come up with schemes that incentivise these reductions. For industrials, voluntary demand shifts are the best outcome — we need demand reduction, not destruction here.”