Submission on EirGrid's consultation on `Shaping Our Electricity Future'. ESRI Submission May 2021.

Curtisa, John (2021) Submission on EirGrid's consultation on `Shaping Our Electricity Future'. ESRI Submission May 2021. UNSPECIFIED.

PDF - Published Version Download (180Kb)

Abstract

Developers of renewable energy infrastructure, as well as transmission grid infrastructure, often face public opposition to new projects. Scenario analysis of generation and transmission system investment show that many future pathways are feasible but alternatives are not without impacts on system costs and electricity prices [1–5]. As the power system expands with greater generation and transmission capacity required over the coming decade, system costs and electricity prices could dramatically escalate if there is a sharp deterioration in the public’s acceptance of new energy infrastructure [4]. The implication for the electricity sector and society in general is that community and stakeholder engagement on new energy infrastructure projects should continue to be a key priority. Public acceptance of energy infrastructure is often characterised as a local issue where the new infrastructure is to be located. Both developer and public policy initiatives exist to encourage acceptance of new infrastructure in local communities, often conceptualised in terms of willingness to accept costs. But the impact on the power system’s costs and(implicit) electricity prices are neither necessarily local to the area of potential new infrastructure nor uniform across the network. For example, impacts can occur on opposite sides of the country in terms of unserved power or higher system costs, es-pecially in the Dublin region where network congestion is most acute [4]. The estimates by Koecklin et al.[4] of implicit (or shadow) regional electricity prices conditional on varying levels of public acceptance of electricity infrastructure are a metric of both system-wide and regional network values of development of new infrastructure necessary to maintain electricity supply security and achieve renewable electricity targets.

Actions (login required)