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Extract:

An Taisce considers there to be many very serious potential pitfalls with the permitting and use of private wires and the provisions laid out in the General Scheme. This proposed legislation may allow private users to divert significant amounts of energy, including new renewables capacity, away from the national grid. If private wires are to be used to facilitate

the development of new sources of significant power demand, such as data centres and other large energy users (LEUs), this could risk undermining rather than supporting our decarbonisation efforts.

• This legislation could facilitate and incentivise renewables developers quickly connecting new renewable energy directly to data centres and other LEUs who are able to out-compete state bodies both in terms of speed and resources. This could mean that new renewable energy coming on stream will be snapped up to cover new large power demands, like new data centres, rather than going to decarbonise grid electricity and address our existing serious emissions mitigation needs.
• In the absence of strong safeguards, permitting private wires could therefore create a two-tier energy system where private large energy users are competing for energy with the public interest and the urgent need to decarbonise our existing power demands.
• This could contribute to increased system costs and prices for ordinary households already struggling with rising energy bills. It appears that private LEUs may not contribute their fair share to grid expansion and maintenance (even when they can use the grid for back-up) yet may benefit from a competitive edge over public entities such as the ESB if private wire access is granted. We would highlight that the Government’s Private Wires Policy Statement published in July 20251 states that private wires cannot undermine the financing or the efficient development of the  National Electricity Grid. We do not consider the provisions in the Heads of Bill, including in Head 4, to adequately address these issues.
• The potential impacts of the Bill on electricity costs, as well as on the ability to deliver the amount of energy capacity and grid infrastructure needed for housing and other societal needs, should be fully assessed.

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