 I think, as you can see from the earlier speakers, it's pretty evident that the energy system is now moving in sort of a new and challenging direction where the focus on sustainability is pretty much creating a paradigm shift in terms of how power systems are constituted and managed with move away from what we would traditionally have called traditional linear value chain models to more joined up and integrated approaches where energy and in particular ICT are increasingly interlinked and intertwined and the customer is increasingly at the forefront and all of this is happening at the same time as we're seeing more integration with Europe both in terms of physical interconnection I've never been so jealous as when I saw that map that he put up there by the way but also the coupling of energy markets and I think you know it is a very important point about how critical a functioning energy market is to the integration of renewables. I think this chart here just shows how the the European energy mix is evolving and this is a slightly different version of what Arne put forward earlier but it's the same point what it shows is that in terms of electricity its proportion of the European energy mix is set to double out to the period to 2050 from about 18 percent to close to 40 percent and then for that electricity mix in terms of the scenarios that were modeled we can see that renewables moving from about 18 percent to somewhere north of 55 percent and in some cases up to 90 percent I mean that's a huge and staggering shift in terms of the overall European energy mix and I suppose highlights the importance of the seminar here today and what we're talking about. I used this slide an awful lot many of you will see me put it up before and it shows the levels of non-synchronous generation in the various power systems across Europe and this just looks at synchronous power systems a lot of the time we look at countries or whatever but this looks at synchronous power systems so you have Ireland and Northern Ireland we've our nearest neighbour in Great Britain you've the large continental Europe power system Scandinavia Cyprus and Malta the two small ones and I think you know and these are just pulled together from national renewable energy action plans in terms of targets for people out to 2020 what you can see is in terms of penetration of wind onto a synchronous power system the level of ambition here in Ireland and Northern Ireland is significantly ahead of what's been done in other countries and Petter talked about the scale of ambition in Denmark and he's connected to two synchronous power system which brings a whole range of its own challenges and I think it's a huge amount that we can learn from there when you have a large amount of renewables on one small synchronous system there are a whole other set of problems that you need to to look at and address and there's some things there that I think that where we're at the forefront of developing this and so there's a huge amount that we can learn and develop and then share around the other power systems and in Europe in terms of moving it forward so in terms of this morning I mean I think in transitioning to high power system with huge levels of renewables on it you can book at the challenges into sort of three categories power system and technical challenges financial and market and political and regulatory and I suppose the theme of today's conference was around managing high levels of renewables and a power system I'm just going to talk about the first one I wouldn't dare anyway talk about regulatory or political matters anyway and on the system and technical ones I was just going to look at that the two dimensions first strategic infrastructure the need to deliver to enhance and develop the grid so that we can move this renewable power from where it's generated to where it's needed and also maybe talk just a little bit about the plans for interconnection here where we're at in terms of interconnection existing and also plans for future interconnection and secondly maybe talk about the need to come up with new and innovative solutions in terms of how we operate the power system well of course always ensuring that the lights stay on all day every day and I suppose this this latter one is in particular where this intertwining of energy and ICT comes particularly to the forefront so I suppose turning first to diversity to delivery of strategic network infrastructure we have a network program underway grid 25 it involves about 200 different projects right around the country capital expenditure of about 3.2 billion out to 2025 and that's expanding and extending the network everywhere from Cork to Kildare and from from Dairy to Donegal and I suppose over the next few months three of these major 400 KV projects are going to be coming out into the public domain a few weeks ago we launched the next phase of consultation on the grid West program which is this one from out into to Bella Carrick to connect up wind farms there we started drawing route corridors on a map and there's been quite a lot of public engagement on that it's going quite well the second one is we'll be going back out to public consultation on the north-south interconnector which has been a traditionally a very difficult project and will continue probably to be a very difficult project we expect that to be relaunched probably in the next three to four weeks early early April and then later about a number of weeks after that the gridling project the next phase of consultation gridling the project that goes 400 KV line 260 kilometers from Cork to Great Island and then on up to the south of Dublin and again we'll be going out with route corridors on a map and you know that tends to engender a different form of conversation with with communities but I suppose in that context we recognize though that building this transmission infrastructure is does have a significant impact on communities and the environment and you know we are absolutely committed to ensuring that we do work with all stakeholders to ensure that any issues our concerns are raised that they're addressed that people have the opportunity to understand our proposals to engage with our team and ultimately to have an input into and influence how these projects are ultimately developed notwithstanding all of that you know these tend to take a long while to develop and they tend to be difficult projects to move through the process. Just to talk about interconnection just for one quick second I suppose in tandem with making sure that our transmission grid here is fit for purpose we're also looking at opportunities for further interconnection with Europe. Last year we completed the construction of the East West interconnector which is 500 megawatt HP DC interconnector with the UK doubling the interconnection capacity between this island and our nearest neighbor and this will increase security supply it will increase competition driving prices down and it also provides a route to market for renewable energies. Some of you will know here the importance of having a market structure that works is critically important such that that that route to market can be captured by the renewables and that they can can use it and we might come back to that later on in the discussion but we're now actively looking at other opportunities for further interconnection beyond the East West interconnector we're just finalizing some initial feasibility studies done in conjunction with the French transmission system operator RTE about the feasibility and the benefits for further interconnection with France and this is showing significant benefits to societies on both sides in terms of producer benefits and we'll be looking at how we best take that project forward. In addition as I'm sure you're all aware there's significant interest in large-scale additional interconnection between Ireland and the UK in particular associated with the memorandum of understanding recently signed between the government here and the government in the UK and what we have done is we've worked with our colleagues in UK National Grid to look at how best this could be interconnected with both systems you know what's generally talked about is a gigawatts of wind farms in the midlands of Ireland connected into an availing of support systems in in the UK and what we looked at what what what we looked at was what was the best way to connect this was it best to do it just as a point connection of a wind farm in Ireland as a two specific points in the UK or was a connection method where it was integrated with both grids would that deliver benefits to either our boat systems and the analysis clearly showed that there were significant benefits if this was developed in a manner where the connections were integrated into the grids on either side and there's a report on that available on our website and I suppose this is a non-going process I mean the two governments in associations with the two regulators are looking at framing and setting out this intergovernmental agreement my understanding of the timeline is that the hope is that that will be done early quarter one next year and we're working with CERM with other colleagues to try and just frame what is the best way to do this and to move forward but there's an awful lot of a lot of interest in it and in terms of scale it is very important for I suppose for Ireland taking a selfish perspective that it's done right so I suppose moving quickly to the second of my themes I suppose smart grids and the need for smart grids and innovative solutions I think that the the complexity of the electricity system and the energy system is increasing exponentially as levels renewable levels increase on the system and also as user participation starts to increase with a proliferation of smart devices smart meters and you know the extent to which electric transportation is electrified through through the use of electric vehicles and I suppose to illustrate some of the complexity of this this is a graph of real-time operation of the system and the extent to which we can accommodate renew wind on the system today so today we will manage the system with up to half of the demand being served by renewables or non-synchronous generation in terms of winds this is operating in this in this blue area and when it goes above if the wind starts to blow such that it will go above that we have to curtail the wind and I don't talk about how he won't do that in Denmark but he has that market that he can export it to so he's sorted quite often that luxury doesn't exist here and to that extent we need to pull it back what we know is that in order to meet the 40% target so today we're at about 18% of final energy from renewable sources in electricity to meet the 40% target without curtailment going sort of through the roof here to on sustainable levels we know we need to move that 50% up to 75% by 2020 and there's a range of programs underway to do that in order to sort of if you like push us down this curve here and to make to ensure that wind farm projects remain investable and interconnection also pushes you down this curve or actually creates a second curve which is underneath it which will reduce the levels as well and so in order to manage all of that what we've got is we've got a smart grid program that effectively has four strands to it the first DS3 this is delivering a secure sustainable power system it's a multi-annual program right across industry that looks at how we change the operation of the power system including changing market arrangements and we're well advanced and in terms of looking at the the system services and how they should be remunerated it also looks at things like advanced tools and control centers demand response and all of that and we're using an advisory council around that as well to try and ensure that we get input from industry at all stages and trying to bring the industry along with us so it's quite an intensive program and many of you in the room here involved in various different aspects of it the other elements of our smart grid program I suppose are the technology and infrastructure piece and this is looking at how we maximize the utilization of the grid that's there is being built and I suppose we've had some particular successes with new upgrade technologies high-temperature low-side conductors we're looking at dynamic line rating and innovation such as that to try and push down the costs of doing the of integrating renewables on this this is all about efficiency and effective delivery of grid and using what you have as efficiently as possible the demonstration projects demonstration projects that's an initiative where we are looking at taking commercial technologies that are available maybe in other markets or maybe from other purposes and applying them here to see whether they can solve particular problems here and we've got two that are underway one of them actually looks at the integration between heating and the electricity system to see with Glenn Dimplex and their quantum heater and work is quite well advanced on that and we've got a healthy pipeline of projects out for the next number of years looking at things in that space and the final one is the smart grid innovation hub and this is an initiative that we launched with the NDRC the National Digital Research Centre and this is about trying to find smart grid concepts out there and provide an environment in which they can be sort of developed tested nurtured and ultimately turned into to commercial proposition so it's like a commercial incubator with us with the power system sandbox attached to it and so we have all those sort of working in a life cycle effect to try and get smarter better ways to operate the power system to allow us to integrate these levels of renewables in a cost efficient and effective way as well. So I suppose in conclusion I think you know the electricity system in Ireland in Europe and around the world is changing at airbridge we're committed to ensuring that in Ireland and Northern Ireland we have a power system that's fit for purpose that delivers secure reliable sustainable power where it's needed when it's needed. To ensure this we have a nationwide investment program grid 25 to deliver the expanded strategic infrastructure network infrastructure that's needed and in tandem with that we're evolving how we operate the system with smart grid solutions. I suppose delivering on all of this requires extensive stakeholder and community engagement which we're absolutely committed to but the transmission grid is vital strategic infrastructure it's the lifeblood of the energy system and you know it must be developed to ensure that we have secure sustainable competitive energy supply that supports the economy that supports industry that supports regional development supports jobs supports investments and supports the harnessing of the terrific renewable resources that we have here for the benefit of everyone. So with that thank you very much ladies and gentlemen.