I am delighted to have the opportunity to address your conference this morning. Energy is a fundamental component of modern society and plays a critical role in facilitating economic development. It is a clear aim of our energy policy to ensure a secure, clean and affordable energy supply for Ireland. Renewable energy will play a key role in developing Ireland's energy future and will contribute in turn to each of our policy goals of secure, clean and affordable energy.
World events have yet again focussed attention on the energy sector. The unfortunate events in Japan have highlighted the challenges faced in generating electricity and shown how vulnerable society and the general economy are to disruptions in electricity supply.
In North Africa and parts of the Middle East, we see that political uncertainty can disrupt physical energy flows, be they gas or oil, and this shows the dangers of Europe becoming increasingly dependent on oil and gas from external sources. As a country that is almost 90% dependant on imported oil and gas to meet our energy requirements, we are more aware than most of the importance of a secure and dependable supply chain.
All of these disruptions and risks manifest themselves in the price we pay for our energy and introduce unwelcome volatility and uncertainty to the markets.
In Ireland, we need to ensure that we have an effective and responsive energy policy in place. We need to reduce the amount of energy we use through increasing our energy efficiency measures and we need to develop our indigenous energy sources to switch away from imported fuel sources.
Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland's latest 'Energy in Ireland' report shows that we have made a good start in this, with the growth rate of fuels in Ireland over the 5 year period 2005 to 2009 showing a clear switch in fuels away from coal and oil towards natural gas and renewables. The average annual growth in the 5 year period shows natural gas increasing by 5% per annum with renewables increasing by 15% per annum, while in the same period coal use decreased by 10% and oil decreased by 4%.
This is also reflected in the emission levels from electricity, which reduced from 890 grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) per kilo watt hour of electricity produced in 1990 to 530 grams per kilo watt hour in 2009. In recent years Eirgrid developed a comprehensive national grid development strategy 'Grid 25' and the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) working with industry stakeholders developed the Gate system to plan for the development of renewable electricity generation to meet our 2020 targets.
While good development has taken place in the last few years, we do need to focus more on implementing the strategies developed and ensuring that the grid reinforcements are built in time to facilitate the build out of the renewable projects.
It is vitally important that we secure the State Aids clearance for the REFIT system to allow the next set of projects to secure financing and I have told my Department to prioritise the delivery of this. In these financially challenging times we need to maintain a level of certainty for projects to ensure timely development.
I have also asked my Department to liaise closely with the relevant sections in the Department of Environment to ensure that we can successfully work alongside the planning and environmental regulations. It will be a real challenge to develop in and near some of the special areas of conservation and I commend the Irish Wind Energy Association for working with Local Councils in developing their area development plans and in devising monitoring programmes on bird species such as the hen harrier.
To facilitate the planned rollout of offshore wind technologies, my Department also needs to work with the Department of Environment to finalise the new foreshore planning process.
Given the scale of the renewable resource available to us, both onshore and offshore, it is also important that we work with our neighbouring administrations and the European Commission in seeking ways to develop these resources in an economically viable and environmentally acceptable way.
There is no doubt that the resource is there, but we need to work to ensure that it can be developed in a way that will bring national benefits and in a way that will not adversely effect the Irish energy consumer. Over time, there is real potential to develop a renewable electricity export market.
We have been working closely with our colleagues in Northern Ireland and Scotland in the ISLES project, which is looking at the feasibility of offshore transmission links between the jurisdictions. Early results from the project look positive and I am looking forward to seeing the completed report later this year.
We are working closely with the UK Government and devolved administrations in the two energy workstreams in the British Irish Council on energy infrastructure and on ocean energy technologies. We are looking to develop a regional approach towards developing our energy infrastructure and at ways to make our energy markets more compatible to facilitate cross border trade.
We are also working with 9 other countries, the European Commission, ACER, which is the European association for energy regulators and ENTSO-E which is the European association for transmission system operators to develop a North Seas infrastructure that can deliver greater interconnection between the markets and facilitate the development of offshore wind in the region. The region is composed of the North Sea, Georges Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The initiative is looking at the infrastructure, market, regulatory, planning and permitting issues involved in the region.
To summarise, while we have made good progress to date, we now need to concentrate on delivery to ensure we firstly achieve our own national targets and possibly position ourselves towards becoming a renewable electricity exporter.
Finally, I would like to thank Michael Walsh and the IWEA committee for inviting me here today and for giving me the opportunity to address your conference. It looks like a really good conference programme and I wish you well with the rest of your conference.