The chief executive of Eirgrid has said the Grid Link project “is dead”.
Fintan Slye is appearing before an Oireachtas committee after the company abandoned plans for high voltage cables on pylons between Cork and Kildare.
Eirgrid is the semi-State body in charge of the maintenance and upgrading of the national power network.
It said a changing economy meant it could serve the electricity needs of the economy on existing regional projects up to 2025 or 2030.
And Mr Slye added the now-abandoned plans would not be resurrected in 10 or 15 years.
He said: “We won’t dust off or resurrect the Grid Link 400kv option…Time will have passed (and) it won’t be possible to do that.”
Instead, new technologies collectively called “series compensation” will be used to deliver increased power through existing power lines between Moneypoint and Dublin.
Communities from Cork to Wexford and Kildare objected strongly to Gridlink in 2013, specificllay to its plan for pylones between kildare and Cork. Locals wanted the 400kv powerline put underground, but Eirgrid initially dismissed the option saying it would cost €2bn.
The debate culminated in the Government decision to establish an independent commission to examine the project.
Update 1pm: Fintan Slye said it was “technically possible” to put the North-South Interconnector project underground. The North-South Interconnector with high voltage pylons is now before An Bord Pleanála.
He said the underground option was “technically feasible, but not technically as good and it costs significantly more money”.