ESB CEO warns network repairs after Storm Éowyn could see higher costs for customers

25,000 customers across the midlands, west and northwest of the country are still without power over ten days after Storm Éowyn brought record-breaking gusts of more than 183km/h across Ireland.

Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne, CEO of ESB Networks Paddy Hayes said that a full assessment of costs for customers is due to be looked at in 2026 as well as potentially upgrading ESB Networks systems and moving networks underground.

Hayes said: "There is a cost associated by this that will ultimately be borne across the electricity network as a whole. It is a devastating and destructive storm, the likes of which we have never seen before."

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Claire Byrne put to Paddy Hayes that UCC's Associate Professor in Power Systems Engineering Dr. Barry Hayes estimates upgrading the current network system in Ireland and putting it underground where customers would be less likely to be affected by storms and extreme weather could cost upwards of €150 billion.

In response, Paddy Hayes said: "What I can say is, that we have built our network overhead for a number of reasons, the first is that it's a very cost effective way of building networks for the population dispersion that we have.

"It's also a very flexible way, it means we can add to that network very quickly if we want to add customers in and add houses and communities in, so it's a very flexible and very effective way of running the network."

Hayes warned that it would be more costly to put a network underground and that it would also mean longer routes as the current network goes over fields and not necessarily along road ways.

"What we will do is we will look and we will take stock and we will be open to thinking about anything that might need to be done if there is an expectation that events like this which is seen as once in a generation are likely to happen and probable to happen again in the future."

Paddy Hayes said he acknowledged the difficulty people are facing in relation to costs in the wake of the storm.

While he could not give an exact figure when it came to how much the restoration operation was going to cost the ESB, he estimated it would be "tens of millions".