cover story
Collaborating to deliver net zero ESB Chief Executive, Paddy Hayes, talks to Owen McQuade about the company’s Net Zero by 2040 strategy and how electricity offers other sectors a pathway to a net zero carbon future.
Moneypoint power station in County Clare typifies Ireland’s energy transition from carbon to clean energy. The site has been the home of a 855MW coal-fired plant since the early 1970s. ESB is determined to stop burning coal at Moneypoint by 2025 and has embarked on a project to convert the site into a green energy hub, known as Green Atlantic @ Moneypoint. The project started with the installation of five wind turbines on the site in 2017. The next phase of the project involves the installation of a €50 million synchronous condenser – which will be the world’s largest flywheel – to help stabilise the electricity grid as increasing quantities of
10 10
cover story
intermittent renewable electricity are connected. ESB also plans to build floating offshore wind turbines which will feed into a hydrogen production facility at Moneypoint. The Green Atlantic @ Moneypoint project reflects ESB’s new strategy, Driven to Make a Difference: Net Zero by 2040, which was launched in February 2022. “In developing the strategy we went down to brass tacks and looked at the purpose of the organisation. We peeled that back to three of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that underpin everything we do: access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy
for all; build resilient infrastructure; and take urgent action to combat climate change,” explains Hayes, who was appointed Chief Executive of ESB in August 2021. Hayes insists that the purpose of ESB has always been linked to the first two of those goals and since 2015, aligned with ESB’s previous Brighter Future Strategy, the utility has also focused on what the electricity sector could bring to climate action. “The electricity sector in Ireland has already made significant progress on climate action, with over 40 per cent of electricity in 2020 generated from
