Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

324 Chapter 12: Environment and Energy Electricity interconnection Increased interconnection and storage help balance electricity supply and demand between countries and provides a valuable back-up power supply for when electricity systems have reduced capacity. Electricity interconnection is playing an increasing role in Ireland’s energy system as the system becomes decarbonised and fossil fuel generation is replaced by large-scale variable-supply renewables. Interconnectors act as energy highways and allow energy import and export. As we increase our share of renewable electricity generation, interconnectors will allow us not only to import electricity when we have insufficient indigenous generation available but also to export electricity when we generate more than we require to meet our domestic energy demands. Ireland’s net import of electricity across interconnectors increased 12-fold up to 3.3 TWh in 2023 and set a new annual record. This step change in interconnector behaviour is set to increase into the near future. Ireland’s interconnection capacity currently stands at 500 MW in a single connection to the UK. Facilitated by the National Policy Statement on Interconnection 2018, 4 capacity is set to more than treble by 2026 to 1700 MW, including a return of direct interconnection between Ireland and the EU via the Celtic Interconnector (DECC, 2023c). Energy efficiency and electrification of transport The current dependence of transport systems in Ireland on liquid fossil fuels is unsustainable and is completely misaligned with the goal of transitioning to a climate- neutral economy. A range of zero- and low-emission transport technologies now exists, primarily electrification but also liquid and gaseous biofuels and the emerging prospects of electrofuels (hydrogen, green methanol, etc.), in particular for harder to electrify transport modes such as aviation and maritime shipping. Technology end-of-pipe solutions alone do not address systemic and structural issues, however. An integrated approach to mobility and settlement planning that embraces the avoid-shift-improve approach and encourages opportunities for active modes of travel and public transport can have multiple gains, including for overall energy use in transport and for health and the environment. For a detailed discussion of the energy use and environmental impact of the transport sector in Ireland, along with future plans for the sector, please refer to Chapter 11. 4 www.gov.ie/en/publication/3e988-national-policy-statement-on-electricity-interconnection/ (accessed 9 September 2024). Renewable fuels While electrification is expected to meet many energy needs in the future, some hard-to-decarbonise sectors will require access to fuels or stored energy that can meet their demands, including for some industrial and transport applications. Progress is being made with developing these low- and zero-carbon energy supplies. Liquid biofuels. Ireland set new records for biofuel blending in road petrol and road diesel in 2023. The annualised average biofuel blend in road diesel was 8.4% in 2023, up from 6.5% in 2022, and the average biofuel blend in road petrol was 4.2% in 2023, up from 3.2% in 2022. The increased blending of biofuel into road diesel reduced the energy demand of fossil petrochemical diesel by 2.0% in 2023 (SEAI, 2024a). Ireland’s energy requirements for biodiesel, bioethanol and biomass are satisfied through a combination of indigenous production and international imports. In 2023, Ireland’s import dependencies on biodiesel and bioethanol were 68.4% and 78.8%, respectively, while its import dependency on biomass was 16.1% (SEAI, 2024b). In 2023, biofuels saved 0.81 million tonnes of CO 2 emissions from transport. Since 2005, there have been cumulative biofuel emissions savings of 6.4 million tonnes of CO 2 , making biofuels one of the more important mitigation measures to date for reducing transport-related emissions (EPA, 2024c). Biomethane. Biogas is produced as the main product of the anaerobic digestion of biological feedstocks, including food waste, sewage sludge and agricultural feedstocks. Biogas typically comprises 60% methane and 40% carbon dioxide. When biogas is upgraded to greater than 97% purity methane, it is termed biomethane. CAP24 has ambitious targets of producing 1 TWh of biomethane by 2025 and 5.7 TWh by 2030 from anaerobic digestion of agricultural feedstocks to replace the fossil methane in the natural gas network. This target is a little over 10% of the current use of fossil fuels; however, it is expected to rise to over 50% of Irish usage by the mid-2030s as Ireland shifts the economy away from gas in favour of electrification. Achieving the biomethane targets will require very significant investment and scaling up from the current biomethane production level. A recent Gas Networks Ireland report identified the potential for 14.8 TWh of biomethane from over 170 prospective producers (Gas Networks Ireland, 2023).