Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-28-Speech-3-405"
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"en.20050928.28.3-405"2
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"Mr President, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur on a highly informative report on the 21 types of renewable energy, which will play an ever-increasing role in the 21st century, whether from a climate-change perspective or that of the security of supply of fossil fuels and increasing prices.
My own country, Ireland, is uniquely placed for the development of green energy and green fuel: we have the technological base, the climate and amongst the strongest wind and waves in Europe off our Atlantic coast. Just yesterday our minister announced a new scheme to support another 400 megawatts of renewable capacity. However, despite all of that, the ambition of our renewables sector is completely frustrated. Again the minister has got it wrong: his proposal is an attempt to defy economic gravity. He is proposing the only scheme in Europe to cap prices and quantities. This will totally distort competition in a market that is already stacked against independent renewable generators.
We do not have de facto liberalisation of the electricity market in Ireland. The investigation into anti-competitiveness practices in the electricity market announced six months ago by Commissioner Kroes will no doubt show that the ESB – our Electricity Supply Board – like its French counterpart EDF, still holds an effective monopoly and abuses its dominant position as the gatekeeper of the national grid, instead of ring-fencing generation from grid operation with cross-subsidisation of uneconomic fossil fuel generation with the national grid profits. The fear that the ESB could switch off the lights at any time causes the regulators to take a softly, softly approach to the opening up of the market. There is nothing the government can do! It has relinquished all power to form policy in this particular area. The 1999 Act, which set up the Irish Commission for Energy Regulation, had an in-built provision for ministerial policy directions to be cut off in 2002. Conveniently the author of that act is now head of the Irish Commission for Energy Regulation, which has carte blanche to regulate without any government input or supervision. Necessary independent arbitration should not preclude ministerial policy directions.
We have what is effectively a marginal grid policy, where each project requires an upgrade of the grid and has to fight for access on an ad hoc basis. The bureaucracy and financial uncertainty this causes for renewables is considerable. It is high time the Irish Government took back control over shaping a progressive renewables policy in Ireland."@en1
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