Announcement: Moody's: Ireland's power prices to remain low over next five years as renewable energy grows

Power prices in Ireland are expected to stay low by historical standards over the next five years, partly due to the growth of renewable energy, Moody's Investors Service said in a report today. Moody's expects Irish power prices to move within a range of EUR43 to EUR48 per megawatt hour (MWh) over the five years to 2022.

Moody's report, "Europe's electricity markets - In Ireland, power prices to remain low with higher demand offset by renewables growth", is available on www.moodys.com. Moody's subscribers can access this report via the link provided at the end of this press release. This report does not constitute a rating action.

"We don't expect Irish power prices to increase significantly over the next five years," said Alastair Sullivan, a Moody's Assistant Vice President -- Analyst and the report's co-author. "Low prices will reflect the continued growth of onshore wind power, although this will be partly offset by growth in domestic demand of around 2% each year, a gradual increase in gas and CO2 prices and continued demand from Great Britain for energy generated in Ireland through subsea cables."

Moody's expects robust growth in demand for electricity to provide some support to power prices over the coming years. The growth of data centres in Ireland will contribute significantly to electricity demand. By 2022, Ireland's data centres are expected to need 1,200MW of electricity each year.

While energy generation supported by renewable schemes is expected to grow by around 13% each year up to 2022, it will start to decline by around 2024 as support for the early projects under the first Renewable Feed-In Tariff scheme begin to expire. Considerable uncertainty around the next generation of renewable energy support schemes remains.

In May 2018, the Single Electricity Market will transition to a substantially different market structure. While some elements of the new structure are well-developed, uncertainty remains around the impact that it will have on wholesale prices and it may be some time before this becomes clear.

Moody's does not expect the UK's vote to leave the European Union to have a major impact on the Irish electricity market. The Single Electricity Market, which connects the transmission networks of Northern Ireland and Ireland, is a product of national law and bilateral agreements, rather than EU directives.