{"id":630803,"date":"2026-09-20T21:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T21:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/630803\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T21:00:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T21:00:20","slug":"esb-battens-down-the-hatches-for-storm-season-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/630803\/","title":{"rendered":"ESB battens down the hatches for storm season \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">September has brought with it the official start of Ireland\u2019s storm season. While the Atlantic has been uncharacteristically calm so far this year, the ongoing El Ni\u00f1o phenomenon will inject more unpredictability into the weather this winter. It\u2019s somewhat reassuring then that ESB Networks appears to have learned some valuable lessons from the most disastrous storm to hit these shores in recent years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Storm Eowyn, which rolled across the country in late January 2025, was the most expensive weather event in Irish history, costing insurers about \u20ac301 million. The economic damage was significant, with parts of the west of Ireland without power and broadband for weeks after. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">All told, the storm resulted in operating costs of \u20ac100 million last year for the ESB. The group also incurred \u201ccapital costs\u201d of about \u20ac40 million, executive director for group finance and commercial Paul Stapleton said this week. <\/p>\n<p>Storm \u00c9owyn made landfall on January 24th bringing with it record-breaking winds that damaged shop hoardings, downed trees and electrical lines in Castlebar. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">So what lessons did it learn? \u201cWe\u2019ve been investing very significantly in the more vulnerable circuits in the more vulnerable parts of the country,\u201d said Stapleton. Crucially, the group has also massively stepped up efforts to clear trees and cut back forestry, which pose a threat to power lines. This was a significant issue during Storm Eowyn and it\u2019s clear the ESB has zeroed in on it in preparation for this coming winter. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cAs part of our overall winter resilience plan, we\u2019ve been investing hugely in enhanced timber cutting,\u201d Stapleton said. \u201cWe\u2019ve identified 8,000 weakened or diseased trees that are impacting on our networks and we\u2019ve addressed those, removing them or cutting them back to a level where they\u2019re no longer a risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">ESB Group has also \u201ccompleted 17,000km of our regular timber cutting\u201d, he said. A further 337km of forestry has been surveyed, with priority sites identified for cutting in advance of winter. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"c-image audio_image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789938020_305_1784803479672-9ae96ac7-c636-4bcb-998c-c0aedcc60931.jpeg\"\/>Soaring energy costs and why \u2018we can\u2019t protect everyone from the impact of war\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The truth, however, as Stapleton said, is that \u201cwe\u2019ll never fully mitigate the impact of extraordinary hurricane-level wind speeds\u201d. But the scale of the ESB\u2019s efforts to prepare for what could be a particularly nasty storm season at least inspires some confidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"September has brought with it the official start of Ireland\u2019s storm season. While the Atlantic has been uncharacteristically&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,6572,78917,61,60],"class_list":["post-630803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-cantillon","tag-esb-networks","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}