Council calls for changes in customer access to smart meter data
The Climate Change Advisory Council is calling on the Government to make the legal and regulatory changes needed so customers can easily access their smart meter data to help lower electricity bills and reduce peak electricity demand.
This information, and an entitlement to access dynamic electricity pricing, was legislated for in 2022 but has now been delayed until June next year.
Despite the installation of almost two million smart meters, people, households and businesses still cannot easily access data on the consumption of their electricity to avail of better tariffs.
Launching its Annual Review of the Electricity Sector, the Chair of the Climate Change Advisory Council Marie Donnelly said the delay is disappointing.
Ms Donnelly said electricity suppliers must provide new tariffs, as set out in legislation, which is vital to both altering consumption patterns and shifting electricity usage away from peak times and saving people, households and businesses money.
"We are calling on the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities to reconsider its decision to extend the deadline for electricity suppliers to offer these new tariffs," she added.
The review said also that renewable energy is still not being rolled out fast enough, and insufficient investment in the electricity grid means that some of the renewable energy currently generated cannot be used.
The review highlights a practice known as "dispatch-down", where transmission of renewable energy must be deliberately reduced because of grid limitations.
In 2024, more than 10% of available total wind energy, and more than 5% of power from solar farms that were available to be transmitted was "dispatched-down" because the national electricity grid was not able to handle the load.
As a result, 1,300 gigawatt hours of free renewable energy had to be wasted last year.
The Council says significant investment and political support at national, regional and local level is required for upgrading the electricity grid, especially for essential projects necessary to strengthen it and its capacity to carry renewable electricity.
It is also calling for the accelerated roll out of renewable energy to enable Ireland to transition away from its reliance on fossil fuels.
The review notes that while 1.6 gigawatts of onshore wind and solar projects received planning permissions last year, less than a fifth of that amount, 0.5 gigawatts, was connected via utility scale renewable electricity installations.
This was significantly below the average increase in capacity needed to reach the 2030 targets for renewable electricity.
One fifth of Ireland's existing onshore wind fleet of turbines will reach the end of its planning, or need to be decommissioned by 2030.
The Council is concerned that planning issues and bureaucracy could cause significant delays in the renewal, replacement, and modernisation of those wind farms, which are essential to produce renewable electricity.
Because of this, it is calling for planners at local and national levels to adopt a constructive approach to repowering onshore wind projects.
It says this should include the appropriate use of the Habitats Directive derogation for imperative reasons of overriding public interest, while ensuring biodiversity benefits and risk mitigation.
Today's report says sufficient resourcing and prioritisation within planning authorities will be critical to ensure that statutory timelines are adhered to for the significant volume of renewable planning decisions that need to be made to meet national targets.
The Council also wants industry to accelerate construction of the 2 gigawatts onshore wind projects that have already received planning permission.
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