Government to give 'substantial supports' to people facing rising energy prices
The Security In Prices Energy In Taoiseach Ukraine Both Altered War And Had The The To Said Regard Landscape
The Government will give "substantial supports" to the public in the face of rising energy prices the Taoiseach has said, as he defended the Government's handling of energy production.
Speaking in Offaly on Tuesday Micheál Martin said that a government proposal to limit temperatures and energy usage in government buildings was "sensible" and was as much to do with price as energy demand.
Mr Martin said government leaders will discuss a range of measures designed to support the public in the face of rising costs. However, he did not say whether this would include capping energy prices as has been signalled by new British prime minister Liz Truss.
Mr Martin said the war in Ukraine had altered the landscape in regard to both energy prices and security.
"What's fundamentally different is we have war in Ukraine and energy has been weaponised by the Russian Federation and that is having a particular impact on energy and may have for a considerable time ahead.
"And a crisis does obviously demand and provide a response and in that context, it is price of (energy) really." He added that the "exponential pace" of energy in the last number of months is something we have not seen ever before.
"And it's on the price front that people need to conserve energy also, obviously there is security issues. And yes, other governments in Europe are doing something similar to our own now in terms of demand reduction, sensible things like policies at public buildings that can be applied everywhere."
Mr Martin said the energy demand crisis would need a whole of society response and cited an example of a school in Cork which he had visited on Monday where students are "taking responsibility" for demand reduction.
The Taoiseach was speaking at the launch of a state-of-the-art facility which aims to help stabilise the National grid by providing battery power on days when wind generation is low.
When completed, the new ‘Shannonbridge B’ grid stability plant will provide an additional 170MWh of hybrid capacity to the national electricity grid.
The €130m project will involve approximately 150 jobs over a two-year construction phase and support 15 jobs on completion.