Debate contribution: Energy Security: Renewables

Debate contribution by Mr Paul Frew on 24 March 2026.

MLA

Mr Paul Frew

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

24 March 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Energy Security: Renewables

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5463768

Read the official Assembly record

Text

There has been nothing over the years more frustrating for me than this subject, on which so many politicians reach for zealot status with regard to goals and percentages that they wish to see on renewable energy. They are zealots without the wisdom or know-how to help the people and householders of Northern Ireland. It is not good enough to suggest that we want to have 80% or 100% and to try to reach that without knowing the real-life consequences that you are placing on householders in this country. That is what I have been listening to in frustration for years on the subject. We all would like to see more wind energy, but, if you simply call for a rise in the percentage when 30% of what is generated goes up in the air, what is the point? You need better technology to support the renewable energies that we already generate. More than anything, we need the mix to be right. It is the mix that will protect our people from global pressures and from complicated systems and markets that fleece our people. We will have people in here cheerleading those same markets and those same complicated systems to the point where they do not realise what they do.

Yes, I will.

Yes, I agree with the Member, as long as consumers have a choice. We are building houses without chimneys and leaving a monopoly in which householders will not be able to choose how they heat their home. That is an issue that we will have to grapple with. When people call —

I will make progress. When people call for more wind, they should realise that that wind costs the same unit price of generation as a power plant, but we pay additional costs through capacity payments for its being there. We also pay constraint charges, which are not a charge but a payment to the wind farm companies for having to be turned off.

That is why our people are being fleeced. To have 30% of that go up in the air — how bad is that? How detrimental is that to our people? We need to get technologies that will actually work and embrace and capture the generation that we produce through wind and solar.

We also need greater interconnection, but here is the rub, folks: if we get further interconnection with the Republic of Ireland, GB, France, Belgium, Spain and Germany, that will be a mix of energy, including nuclear, coal and gas. Yet you do not want to know that or to listen to that, because you are zealots when it comes to renewable energy, and that is really taxing. We have Sinn Féin, which says that it wants a greater all-island approach to this, but we have an integrated single electricity market (I-SEM) that does not really work for our people, yet it cannot make up its mind on the North/South interconnector. Do not get me wrong: I think that the prices and benefits of the North/South interconnector are inflated — I really do — but we still need it for that interconnection, just in the same way that we need greater interconnection with GB. We have to worry about the fragility of wind. The reason that we need a plant — we will always need a plant — is because when the system operator — in our case, SONI — worries about energy generation on a half-hourly basis, it not only worries about security of supply but it worries about quality of supply. What I mean by that is that, with energy, there is a frequency, and that is hertz, and if that frequency drops below a certain level or rises above a certain level, fuses start to blow and damage can be done. I can tell you now that wind energy is the most fragile when it comes to that sort of thing, so you will always need a base unit to cope with the amount of energy that we can produce through wind, solar and any other renewable technology that we want to employ. We need to do more. We should do more. We need a greater mix, but to appeal for a headlong rush to a greater percentage of wind alone will just not cut it, because there are consequences to that that hardly anybody understands or grasps, which puts more price on to the consumers of Northern Ireland, and it will be on your heads.

I will give way.

I thank the Member for his intervention. Wisdom has been chasing you, but you have always been faster. The issue is not about a war in the Middle East but about the residents of Londonderry, Foyle and Limavady, Coleraine and Ballymena.

It is about time that you focused on that.

802 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:16 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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