Four ways to meet NI’S goals for green energy

NORTHERN Ireland has achieved a lot when it comes to utilising renewable electricity. Almost half of the electricity used in 2020 was from renewable resources.

It is a remarkable achievement by the industry, with SONI — the electricity transmission system operator for Northern Ireland — and our colleagues at NIE Networks working together to really put NI up there with the best in the world.

However, we have much more to do. While we await a new energy strategy later this year, Economy Minister Diane Dodds has said that NI’S next renewable electricity target should be at least 70% by 2030.

At SONI, we believe climate change is the biggest challenge of our generation and we fully support ambitious targets for renewable energy generation.

As the electricity transmission system operator, it is our job to facilitate increasing levels of renewable electricity on the grid while maintaining a secure and affordable supply to consumers.

We’re under no illusion that the journey to at least 70% by 2030 will be challenging, but not insurmountable if industry, government and communities collaborate to get there together.

Ultimately, the grid will have to handle a large increase in clean energy — double what it handles today. It will also have to meet a huge surge in demand as the heating and transport sectors turn to clean energy to power their decarbonised systems. This all means the grid will need to be made stronger. While we will always work hard to utilise existing infrastructure, it’s going to require significant investment in new grid projects.

Our journey to 2030 will see the most radical transformation of the grid in recent memory.

That is why we’re now undertaking a major public consultation to give everyone the opportunity to share their views on how we deliver a clean electricity system that can handle the changes required this decade.

SONI’S ‘Shaping Our Electricity Future’ report, published last week, sets out four innovative approaches to fundamentally reimagine our grid to allow Northern Ireland to achieve its clean energy ambitions, while maintaining the lowest possible costs to consumers and security of supply.

These are the potential pathways we are asking people to consider and provide feedback on:

■ Generation-led: Government policy would influence where renewable energy is generated – favouring locations where the grid is already strong;

■ Developer-led: In this approach, we continue to connect new sources of renewable electricity as requested in any location;

■ Technology-led: This approach uses technical solutions to make the grid more resilient so it can better handle the variable nature of renewable energy;

■ Demand-led: Government policy determines where future large energy users such as data centres would locate in Northern Ireland.

Each approach will require investments in grid development projects throughout NI, with costs ranging from £113m to £535m depending on the final approach.

Our consultation will run until June 14 and we’ll be holding a series of workshops, meetings and forums to inform as many people as possible and to gather feedback that will directly inform our next steps. We will publish a final ‘Shaping Our Electricity Future’ report before the end of 2021.