Implementation Plan for Ireland - To meet the requirements of the recast Electricity Market Regulation

This document is the amended Implementation Plan for Ireland, prepared in fulfilment of the requirement set out in Article 20 of Chapter IV of the recast Electricity Market Regulation 2019/943, part of the Clean Energy Package (CEP). The original Plan was published on 20 January 2020 and the subsequent opinion of the Commission on the Plan was published on 28 May 2020, both on the website of the Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy.

The requirement in Article 20 is for Member States with capacity mechanisms to prepare and submit an Implementation Plan containing information about its measures under certain pre-defined headings relating to principles and objectives for market operation. These principles and objectives are listed in Articles 3 and 20. The requirement to prepare such a Plan applies to Ireland as the Single Electricity Market, the all island wholesale electricity market, includes a capacity mechanism. The Implementation Plan for Ireland details the various reforms and measures relevant to those principles and objectives. The Plan provides information about measures that are both ongoing and scheduled for future implementation, along with envisaged timelines for implementation. It should be noted that this information already available in the public domain in various CRU, Eirgrid, SONI and Single Electricity Market Committee (SEMC) papers and in Government Policy documents.

The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC) submitted its draft Implementation Plan to the Commission on 16 December 2019 in compliance with the requirement set out in Article 20 of Chapter IV of the recast Electricity Market Regulation 2019/943, part of the Clean Energy Package (CEP). On 20 January 2020 the Commission published the draft implementation plan of a number of Member States, including Ireland and Northern Ireland, for the purposes of its consultation process.

As required under Article 20 the Regulation, the Commission issued its opinion to DECC on 30 April 2020, and published same on 28 May. This final version of Ireland’s Implementation Plan includes the Commission’s opinion along with Ireland’s position and intentions in respect of each aspect of the opinion issued by the Commission.

Article 20 of Regulation (EU) 2019/943 requires all Member States with identified resource adequacy concerns to monitor the application of their implementation plans and to publish the results of the monitoring in an annual report ("Monitoring Report") that shall be submitted to the Commission. These Monitoring Reports have been prepared in fulfilment of this requirement for Commission opinion under Article 20 (7).