Full coverage: Energy

The family-owned fuel retailer saw a 57 per cent bounce in profits last year, but it is changing tack as it tries to get ahead of the transition to electric vehicles. Brian Donaldson, Maxol's chief executive, talks about its play for the forecourt of the future.

There has been much focus on the added capacity needed to meet peak electricity demand, while the public is invited to moderate power usage at crunch times. For commercial users, however, this is already an organised business, as industry representative Siobhán McHugh explains.

The Norwegian state-owned renewable energy group continues to pour cash into Ireland, with more details now emerging on its broadening range of interests – including a stated ambition to lead offshore wind here.

The energy support package had to balance two competing objectives: protect households while limiting our energy use. It's designed so that budgets bend, but do not break.

Through Electric Ireland, the ESB is firing out huge electricity bills to households. Yet in the first half of the year, it made €390m. How does the ESB make money, and how does it justify rising bills?

Dublin-born billionaire engineer David McMurtry is working with the next generation – including an Irishwoman – on the future of all these things. In exclusive interviews, he and the executives leading Renishaw's latest projects talk past, present and future.

The energy storage business has been growing in tandem with intermittent renewable supply. It can also offer a quick fix to insufficient network capacity – as long as it doesn’t replace necessary upgrades.

Engineer Catherine Sheridan joined Cork entrepreneur Pearse Flynn's new company EI H2 six months ago to hunt for energy players willing to explore hydrogen as a replacement green fuel. The technology is there, but her job is just as much about hearts and minds.

The latest project to produce the clean fuel is due to enter production next year on an existing wind farm, focusing on demand as well as supply.

As the government continues to throw hundreds of millions at fuel and electricity bills, piecemeal measures become increasingly unfair and inefficient. Targeting and environmental nudging would get more bang for the same buck.