founded 6 january 2006 2006 01 06 headquarters dublin ireland key people fintan slye chief executive john o connor chairperson services electricity market operator owner irish government number of employees approx . 250 website www.eirgrid.com eirgrid plc is the state owned electric power transmission operator in ireland . it is a public limited company registered under the companies acts ; its shares are held by the minister for communications energy and natural resources . it is one of a number of irish state sponsored bodies and is regulated by the commission for energy regulation . contents 1 history 2 role 3 see also 4 references 5 external links history edit eirgrid was established under irish and european laws including the european communities internal market in electricity regulations 2000 to enable competition in the irish power sector . it took over operation of the national power system on july 1 2006 . esb the electricity supply board currently holds ownership of the physical assets . the transmission assets constitute 6 500 km of overhead line and underground cable as well as over 100 bulk substations . the system s significance for competition is that most large independent generators connect to the transmission system and utilise it to transport their power to all regions . eirgrid also operates the wholesale power market . role edit eirgrid s primary purposes are the daily management of the irish national grid the operation of the wholesale power market and the development of high voltage infrastructure to serve ireland s economy . the high voltage transmission system has been likened to motorways for power or broadband power providing electricity in high quality and in bulk to all regions . transmission is seen as a key factor in facilitating inward investment by bodies like the industrial development authority ida and the development body forfas . it is also seen as critical to increased renewable energy by organisations like sustainable energy ireland sei and the irish wind energy association iwea . eirgrid is currently developing a large number of major transmission projects . it is working with the regulator in line with irish government policy to develop a second major transmission line to northern ireland . the 500 mw east west interconnector linking the irish power system to great britain 1 was commissioned in 2012 . 2 eirgrid will own that interconnector after it is developed under the irish government decision . eirgrid has its own separate board and is regulated by the commission for energy regulation the c.e.r. and its shares are held by the irish government . eirgrid is responsible for balancing electricity consumption and generation for the safe secure and economical operation of the power system and for the planning and development of the irish power grid . under the single electricity market eirgrid operates the wholesale power market on the island of ireland with system operator of northern ireland soni which it now owns . more information on the functions of eirgrid along with graphs of electricity demand wind generation output updated every 15 minutes are available on its website . information on the single electricity market operator semo is also at that website . see also edit electricity supply board references edit project activity . east west interconnector . eirgrid . 16 september 2009 . retrieved 2009 09 29 . uk ireland energy cable opens to bolster wind power external links edit official site map of the transmission network dashboard map archive current power status dashboard twitter v t e electricity generation in ireland companies organisations airtricity dublin bay power eirgrid ervia esb group huntstown power imera power northern ireland electricity premier power ni spirit of ireland sse renewables viridian group ni electricity generating stations aghada ardnacrusha ballylumford ni carnsore point coolkeeragh ni inniscarra kilroot ni kinsale road leixlip lough ree moneypoint poulaphouca ringsend poolbeg seagen ni shannonbridge tarbert turlough hill ni indicates northern ireland retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title eirgrid & oldid 738620775 categories electric power transmission system operators in the republic of irelandstate sponsored bodies of the republic of irelanddepartment of communications energy and natural resources navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutsch edit links this page was last modified on 10 september 2016 at 02 35 . text is 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