Weekly Brief 2

Bord na Móna CEO Tom Donnellan used the company's Energy Conference last Thursday to confirm a 50% expansion of the renewables pipeline — from 5 GW to 7.5 GW — backed by a €3bn investment envelope. Minister O'Brien reaffirmed the Large Energy Users Action Plan (LEAP) framework, and AWS Ireland country leader Niamh Gallagher made the corporate offtake case from the panel.

The week before, CCAC reported Ireland added only 0.8 GW of wind and solar in 2025 against the 2 GW per year required, with 10% curtailment (the highest since records began in 2016) and some of the highest household electricity prices in the EU. In practice the alignment between policy, demand, and capital is the strongest it has been in years. The question now is execution.

Sources · Business Post · Irish Examiner · Think Business · CCAC · LinkedIn (EirGrid, BnM)

Liquid Wind AB — the leading European eFuel developer, with eMethanol projects across Sweden, Denmark, and Finland and a stated plan to reach 10+ facilities by 2030 — was declared bankrupt on 11 May. Subsidiaries are now up for sale. The collapse lands as the EU's ReFuelEU Aviation regulation requires synthetic e-fuels to make up 1.2% of jet fuel from 2030, rising to 35% by 2050. A new SAS report finds Scandinavia alone will need 36,000 tons of eSAF in 2030, 160,000 tons by 2035, and 330,000 tons by 2040 — and the company that would have supplied a meaningful share is in administration.

Michael Liebreich is calling for the mandate to be suspended on cost grounds (eSAF at roughly 10x fossil equivalent). In practice the demand pathway green hydrogen producers across Europe have been counting on is now an open question. For Irish developers, the read is direct — eSAF was supposed to be the offtake that pays for green H₂ at scale, and the lead European player just went under. No Irish eSAF plant has been announced, although a number of demo projects are in the pipline.

> EnergyView editor's reaction: "The EU's eSAF mandate is going to slip, significantly. The economics don't clear at 10x fossil, one of the lead developers just went under, and there's no commercial-scale plant in Europe four years out from the 2030 sub-target."

Sources · Liquid Wind · GreenAir News · LinkedIn (Michael Liebreich) · European Commission

Two weeks after Deputy James O'Connor's Electricity Regulation (Removal of Nuclear Fission Prohibitions) Bill 2026 landed, the Energy Regulator has said it is a discussion worth having. Minister Lawless has called for the 1999 ban to be reversed; Business Post reports government is "looking at what Ireland needs to start building nuclear plants". Deployment by 2050 remains implausible without legislation, a licensing regime, a workforce, a waste pathway, and public consent — but the conversation has moved from "no" to "let's discuss". The EnergyView position remains as stated in Brief 1: remove the legal ban to preserve option value past 2050, but don't prioritise nuclear in Ireland's electricity strategy this side of 2040.

Sources · Business Post · RTÉ

Cork County Council passed an Aontú motion 32–3 on 11 May urging Minister O'Brien to prioritise development of the Barryroe oil and gas field off the Cork coast — claimed 1.6bn barrels of oil with around 300m recoverable, plus 207bcf gas. Councillor Peter O'Donoghue cited "the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz" in his case. The vote came the same week New Fortress Energy publicly blamed environmental campaigners opposing Shannon LNG for the company's financial difficulties.

In practice the resource nationalism / energy security argument is back on the Irish political agenda in a way it hasn't been since 2022. Minister O'Brien's speech at the BnM Conference categorically ruled out new oil and gas exploration.

Sources · Aontú · Irish Independent · Business Post

Dutch TTF gas prices crossed €50/MWh for the first time since the April ceasefire announcement, up 15% in a week. Drivers: US LNG plant outages tightening short-term supply, colder European weather lifting gas-fired dispatch, and rumours of Chinese domestic production outages that would raise its LNG import call. IEEFA simultaneously reports the EU imported record volumes of Russian LNG in Q1 2026.

Sources · LinkedIn (Greg Molnár) · IEEFA · Irish Sun

The Commission published its AccelerateEU Catalogue (COM(2026) 370 final) — a "living document" compiling Member State measures to reduce gas and oil consumption. Headline numbers: full implementation could reduce EU natural gas demand by 10–15 bcm per year and oil by 15–20 Mtoe per year. The EU imported €336.7bn worth of energy in 2025, with an additional €44bn premium from the geopolitical crisis. Ireland is mentioned for the National Smart Metering Programme, the €200m business support scheme (2022), HEULS, and the four-week fuel allowance extension.

In practice: the document is a Commission benchmarking exercise — it identifies measures other Member States have used that Ireland could replicate. Italy's biomethane scheme delivering a tenfold production increase since 2022 stands out, given the RHO multiplier setback covered in Brief 1.

Sources · European Commission (DG ENER)

Application deadline 13:00. Over €20m awarded in 2025 across 34 projects. New optional Offshore Renewable Energy RD&D pathway. Academic Fellowship closes same day; SEAI-based Fellowship closes 11 June. Explanatory webinar Monday 25 May.

Philip Connolly
Editor · EnergyView

Sources this week: Aontú · Business Post · CCAC Annual Review 2026 · CRU interim report · DG ENER (European Commission) · EirGrid · Eurostat · GreenAir News · IEEFA · Irish Examiner · Irish Independent · Irish Sun · LinkedIn (Greg Molnár, EirGrid Group, BnM, Michael Liebreich) · Liquid Wind · RTÉ · The Journal · Think Business ·