John Mullins, whose funeral took place on Thursday, was the second energy visionary taken from Ireland too soon in just over one year.

As CEO of Bord Gáis, Mullins had articulated in the then-semi-state company’s strategy that renewable electricity and gas would combine to gradually wean this island off fossil fuels. As co-founder of Amarenco, he was proven right in his ambition that solar power could become both a significant contributor to the Irish energy mix and a vector to attract and project international investment out of his beloved Cork.

He died on Monday aged just 57, with a lot more to contribute.

In January of last year, Eddie O’Connor passed away. While older than Mullins, he was showing no sign of retiring either. Having brought wind energy to Ireland earlier in his career, he was focusing on the technologies that would enable what he called a “supergrid”. By letting electricity flow freely across Europe, he argued, systematic cross-border interconnections would facilitate transfers between constantly shifting areas of power supply and demand, making room for more renewables in the system.

Both Mullins and O’Connor have transformed Ireland’s energy landscape. Their legacies live on in the proof they have established that renewable energy and the infrastructure needed to support it are the way forward for this island, and in the cohort of young professionals they have mentored and who are now leading the industry.

But with their personal brand of fearless advocacy for change now extinguished, where does the grand vision for the Irish energy transition stand?

Part of the answer to this question lies in who in Government will take on Ireland’s green ambitions now that Eamon Ryan has exited the stage. There was talk among renewable industry players of a gap in leadership at the top following his departure as environment minister earlier this year.

Timmy Dooley, the new minister of state for the marine, has recently been hopping around the continent, reassuring them of Ireland’s commitment to offshore wind. He spoke on the ministerial panel at the Wind Energy Europe conference in Copenhagen two weeks ago to tell the world that Ireland is primed to become a key player in offshore wind. 

But it is the new environment minister, Darragh O’Brien, who is now spearheading plans to ramp up Ireland’s offshore wind offering. And he will chair the wind energy taskforce, as Ryan did, to give the plan the weight of full ministerial backing. 

As Alice reported on Thursday, O’Brien has just secured cabinet approval for a radical acceleration in the process to open up maritime areas to offshore wind developers. The move was welcomed in the industry.

However, it remains to be seen how fast the country can now progress beyond the very first such spatial plan that was published last year. The south coast designated marine area plan (DMAP) took about 18 months from conception to final publication, with all hands on deck. It designated four marine areas for offshore wind. How much longer will the remaining 15 to 20 take?

There are clear signs of progress. To the relief of many, the first DMAP wasn’t legally challenged, demonstrating that the government plan-led approach can keep stakeholders onside. With the right resources, sources within O’Brien’s department believe they could get the job done, especially with the benefit of experience.

Money will be an issue: the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications put out multi-million-euro tenders for survey data held by private developers for the south coast last year but spent much less in the end. Trying to buy data for more spots already explored by companies, as the minister wants to do, will cost more.

Yet that scale of ambition is what’s needed to keep developers, international investors and supply chain companies interested in Ireland as the market moves faster, in some cases, than policy.

Sites of only 500MW capacity – considered large a few years ago – may no longer be big enough to interest multinationals as Ireland competes with all the other countries looking to meet offshore ambitions (minus the US, as the Trump administration cancelled yet another offshore wind project last week). Co Galway’s Sceirde Rocks project, abandoned by Corio one week ago, fell in that category.

Brace for impact when officials begin to communicate how much steeper the effort curve is going to get from next year.

Especially interesting is O’Brien’s commitment to at least two floating wind farm pilots. The technology is on the cusp of being proven on a commercial scale. Making Ireland an attractive destination for it could return the country closer to the lost leadership position it had in offshore wind when O’Connor opened Aitricity’s Arklow Bank 1 with GE backing in 2004.

Meanwhile, his supergrid idea is getting traction. Alice examined the proposal made in Copenhagen by eight countries, including Ireland, to link up their electricity systems across the seas of northern Europe, creating the potential for further offshore wind farm developments along the routes.

Although many questions remain, part of this vision is becoming reality, with the opening of the Greenlink interconnector between Ireland and Wales on Wednesday and construction progressing on its Celtic equivalent with France.

The Climate Action Plan 2025, approved at the same cabinet meeting as O’Brien’s offshore acceleration on Tuesday, mentions discussions with France over a second potential interconnector. My understanding is that this is very much an Irish demand, with the French side waiting to see how much green electricity the Irish side can contribute to the bargain in exchange for further access to France’s nuclear-powered baseload.

The Climate Action Plan’s electricity actions for this year otherwise focus on making supply and demand more flexible, both through the facilitation of longer-duration energy storage beyond existing grid-scale batteries and by encouraging businesses and households to adapt their power usage to that available at any given time.

Beyond regulation and investment within the electricity industry, the improved consenting environment expected to emerge this year from a new National Planning Framework may prove to be the bigger prize. It would remove what was effectively a local-authority ban on renewable development across swathes of the country.

Many of these intentions remain to be translated into actions. The Government managed expectations in its annual Climate Action Plan, published one quarter of the way into the year and “prepared during the transition period before the new Government that took office”: “It sets out what we need to do into 2025, so that we are prepared to take on the challenges of our second carbon budget period 2026-2030”.

Brace for impact when officials begin to communicate how much steeper the effort curve is going to get from next year, after policymakers deliberately kept the first 2021-2025 period of progress towards mandatory climate and renewable energy targets more lenient to allow for take-off from a low point.

As on previous occasions, the electricity sector will be asked to go the extra mile to ease the burden on less prepared – and more voter-heavy – industries from agriculture to transport to home heating.

Mullins’s son Michael told this week’s funeral that his father often said “life is not a dress rehearsal”. Neither is the challenge facing Ireland in its energy transition.

In a considered report drawing from international literature and consultations across the electricity industry, published on Friday, the National Economic and Social Council highlights the central role of the power sector in achieving the necessary decarbonisation of Ireland’s economy but raises some uneasy questions: What is the true scale of the business opportunity, and the associated requirements for resources such as skills and investment? Are potential green energy exports pursued as a real opportunity or an end in themselves – especially considering the uncertainty looming above both the reliability of Ireland’s electricity supply and its price competitiveness on international markets?

On all these issues, “key actors in the necessary transition are not ‘on the same page’ from a strategic standpoint,” NESC found. Yet “the Council’s conclusions must not lead to policy paralysis, rather they demand a systematic, evidence-based response – they are an imperative for action,” its report added: first, to clear well-known bottlenecks in planning, grid, skills, finance, and ports. Next, to solve the knowledge gaps above and lift the “fog” current policy is heading into.

The vision developed by Mullins and O’Connor is more relevant than ever. The energy they displayed through their shortened lives in turning it into tangible outcomes is what is needed now.

*****

Elsewhere this week, Ian shared his discussion with Stripe co-founder and president John Collison at a public event in Kildare. They talked about resisting the IPO rush, the returns of long-term vision, and why Ireland’s economic future depends on rediscovering strategic ambition.

Niall obtained internal documents revealing how public officials approach the end of the NDRC contract later this year. They are more focused on finding someone to manage the current investment portfolio in over 250 companies than ensuring Ireland has a tech start-up accelerator come 2026.

Continuing the Sports Matters podcast series, Ian sat down with Croke Park stadium director Peter McKenna, who also runs the GAA’s commercial operations. McKenna talked about television rights, sustainability, and the lessons from his 25-year journey running what is both a business venue and a cultural monument.

The Currency’s columnists continued to dissect the fall-out from Donald Trump’s America-first trade policy: Joe looked at the damage it causes to US industrial champion Boeing; John drew from Warren Buffett and Nassim Taleb on how to avoid the “dumb money effect” amid heightened market volatility; and Dan examined EU-China relations in the wake of the developing trade war.