In this paper we study an advertising campaign launched by the Irish government to induce more energy-efficient behaviour and we assess its effect on residential natural gas consumption. We first analyse changes in the daily consumption of natural gas and find that advertising leaflets had a significant, but short-lived, effect on natural gas consumption. We find no persistent effect of the campaign. We then study three surveys administered to 1000 consumers prior to and during the campaign. This repeated cross-section allows us to determine that the efficiency campaign has increased awareness of behaviours that curb natural gas consumption. However we do not find any significant effect of the campaign on self-reported natural gas-saving behaviour.

The Moneypoint coal plant is nearing the end of its useful life and will need to be replaced. For Moneypoint's replacement, we consider different types of baseload technologies: coal plants with and without carbon capture, combined-cycle gas plants and a nuclear plant. This paper compares how the different types of plant are likely to affect the net costs of the Single Electricity Market under a number of fossil fuel and carbon price scenarios and highlights issues that might be of interest to final consumers and policy makers, namely effects on short-run prices, emissions and energy security.

In this paper we analyse the 2008 electricity price in the Irish All-Island Market. We test whether this price is ‘efficient’ by comparing it to the electricity price in Great Britain. This analysis suggests that around €16 per MWh of the difference in wholesale prices between Ireland and Britain is due to differences in generating technology. The new wholesale electricity market for the island of Ireland appears to be working well – it is producing a wholesale price that approximates the long run marginal cost that would apply in a large liquid competitive market. In the British market the wholesale price appears to be below the long run marginal cost of producing electricity. Retail margins in Great Britain are high, especially for households. Only some of this margin compensates vertically integrated utilities for the low wholesale price. In the Republic of Ireland the retail margin was probably also higher than it should have been.

Like most countries Ireland faces the double target of decreasing emissions and keeping energy costs low to maintain competitiveness of the economy. The two goals are not always compatible. This study measures the effect of increasing wind in electricity generation on the total electricity costs for the Island of Ireland for the year 2020 under a variety of scenarios on fuel and carbon costs, generating plant portfolio mixes and electricity demand growth. We find that with high levels of interconnection 6000MW of installed wind capacity are likely to reduce overall costs, especially if the price of natural gas stays high. The sensitivity of the results to the level of interconnection suggests that it is important for interconnection to be operated and governed as efficiently as possible. We also find that the deregulated all-island system will face major challenges moving into the future since returns to traditional fossil-fuelled plants might not be sufficient to create new (needed) investment when wind penetration is high.

In this paper we study the recent awareness and persuasion campaign launched by the Irish government to increase energy efficiency and we assess its effect on residential natural gas consumption. We first analyse changes in the daily consumption of natural gas and find that advertising leaflets had a significant effect on natural gas consumption. We then study three surveys administered to 1000 consumers prior to and during the campaign. This repeated cross-section allows us to determine that the efficiency campaign has increased self-reported interest in energy efficiency and awareness of behaviours that curb natural gas consumption. However we do not find any positive effect of the campaign on self-reported energy-saving behaviours.

Climate policy is driving an extensive deployment of wind generation in the Irish electricity market. This study evaluates the cost of increasing wind generation both to the system as a whole and to consumers for 2020. We consider different scenarios on fuel and carbon-dioxide permit prices and the extent of electricity interconnection with Great Britain. For a small and isolated electricity system such as Ireland, a high penetration of wind is economically sound only with increased interconnection to Great Britain, since wind generation would otherwise be curtailed. Not surprisingly, for low fuel prices the least-cost scenario contains low levels of wind generation whereas the opposite is true for high fuel prices. The findings highlight the importance of interconnection and its operation and governance.