Stephen Wheeler: In the race for green growth, we’re losing power needlessly

15 February 2026

By Stephen Wheeler, Managing Director, SSE Renewables

Last week, in publishing its annual report, Wind Energy Ireland called out two headline findings that speak to the status of Ireland’s energy transition.

The first was that one-third of Ireland’s electricity came from wind power in 2025 – a reminder of the significant progress we’ve made. The second was a less positive statistic.

It quoted the latest EirGrid report showing last year over 13 per cent of wind power across the island was never used due to “dispatch down” orders. In other words, wind farms are being instructed to curtail output because the grid in unable to handle it. In some months, that figure rose to nearly as high as 20 per cent.

EirGrid’s data shows that in 2025 dispatch down orders resulted in over 2 million megawatt (MWh) hours of lost wind power – enough to power the equivalent of over a half a million homes at a value of hundreds of millions of euros. These are unsustainable levels.

With rising electricity demand, volatile gas markets, and looming climate targets, the need for Ireland to shift to a renewables-led system can hardly be overstated. And yet, right now we’re losing power, in the most literal sense.

As an operator, that’s frustrating. But the real cost is that the country is missing out on some of the cleanest and most affordable power because the grid can’t carry it.

It's clear now we need to see the establishment of a national dispatch down mitigation strategy that provides clear accountability for delivering measurable improvements to grid performance.

This isn’t only about today’s lost energy. Achieving even a substantial portion of the government’s Climate Action Plan will require not only a significant increase in renewable energy, but also a network capable of making full use of it.

Persistent constraints undermine investor confidence. As a developer, it becomes harder to take decisions to deliver new energy generation if you don’t have certainty the grid will be available.

To their credit, the government and the system operators recognise these challenges. The approved investment of up to €18.9 billion for EirGrid and ESB Networks to upgrade the grid over the next five years is a welcome step change, as is the state’s recent €3.5 billion equity injection.

The important part now is that there’s accountability and robust oversight for delivering these necessary upgrades with genuine urgency and timelines that don’t shift.

The failure to deliver the North-South Interconnector in time is a textbook example of the systemic bottlenecks that have plagued infrastructure delivery for decades. Strengthening the link between the electricity grids on the island would immediately increase capacity, reduce dispatch down and allow more renewable power to flow. And yet that project, first proposed two decades ago in 2006, now looks like it won’t be delivered until well into the 2030s. That can’t be the norm.

The government has put accelerating critical infrastructure at the top of its agenda, and future-proofing our electricity grid must be seen as central to that mission. Grid upgrades must be delivered at a pace that aligns with our renewable energy potential. That’s how we’ll make it clear to investors that Ireland is serious about establishing ourselves as a European leader in green growth in the years ahead.

If wind power is at the heart of Ireland’s energy transition, we need the grid available to act as the arteries, pumping it across the country as its needed. If we get this right, we can underpin Ireland’s future prosperity with clean, homegrown electricity, enabling everything from new homes, to transport, to the digital economy. That’s what’s on the line here. It’s time to power on.

Originally published in the BusinessPost