A leading engineering body has raised serious doubts over the Irish Government’s ambition to fully decarbonise the electricity sector by 2050, warning that the target is not supported by a viable delivery plan or adequate infrastructure.
In a new report, the Irish Academy of Engineering (IAE) criticised what it described as “wishful thinking” in the Government’s climate objectives, highlighting the lack of a clear strategy to implement more than 350 large-scale energy infrastructure projects that would be required to meet the 2050 net-zero goal.
Eamonn O’Reilly, Chair of the IAE’s Energy and Climate Action Committee and lead author of the report, said Ireland’s current trajectory makes the net-zero electricity target unattainable. “Even if all the proposed projects were delivered, we would still require fossil fuels for backup,” he said in an interview on Morning Ireland.
The IAE report forecasts that electricity demand in Ireland will more than double by 2050—from 34 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2024 to around 80 TWh—driven by the electrification of heating and transport sectors.
Despite the scale of this increase, the group says there is no realistic pathway to deliver the necessary projects, including offshore and onshore wind farms, solar energy, transmission lines, interconnectors, and battery storage, within the given timeframe.
Current battery storage technologies, O’Reilly noted, can provide only a few hours of supply, while renewable energy generation is vulnerable to prolonged periods of low wind and sunshine. “There is no technology today that can fill that gap reliably—and nothing currently in development that can,” he said.
The IAE is calling for a more pragmatic approach, including investment in Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) infrastructure to address ongoing risks to energy security identified in the State’s National Risk Assessments since 2014.
The organisation also warned of significant financial consequences for Ireland if targets are missed. The Government has legally committed to a 51% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, a target Ireland is already off course to meet. Failure to achieve it could result in EU-imposed fines ranging from €8 billion to €26 billion, according to estimates from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and the Climate Change Advisory Council.
“We have made commitments in Europe we simply cannot keep,” O’Reilly said, urging policymakers to reassess their strategy with a clearer understanding of technological limitations, project timelines, and costs to consumers.
The Government has yet to respond publicly to the report.
