The majority of the state's windfarms and bioenergy plants are connected to the national grid via the company, which is a division of the ESB.

However, the government has no plans to separate it from the state electricity company, even though the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) had admitted it has received five times more complaints about it than the ESB National Grid, now known as Eirgrid, which is being separated from the ESB.

A CER spokesman said it had received 46 complaints against ESB Networks since 2000 compared with 11 against ESB National Grid/ Eirgrid. He said the complaints mainly related to the cost of obtaining connections and connection delays.

According to the president of the Irish Wind Energy Association (IWEA), Paddy Teahon, some of the organisation's members believe the ESB has made it overly difficult for them to connect to the network.

"The grid standards set by the ESB for connecting to ESB Networks are too high. It doesn't seem to be so much that they're trying to keep our members out of the market as they view themselves as custodians of the grid, " he said.

Teahon said the IWEA was disappointed the government hadn't separated ESB Networks from the ESB and merged it with Eirgrid.

"There's an efficiency in terms of having one independent organisation making all the grid connections.

It's also a psychological benefit involved in separating it from the dominant generator, which may encourage new entrants, " he said.

The Irish Bioenergy Association has also said that it wants ESB Networks to be reformed. Its president, Vicky Heslop, said the fees it currently charged for connections was inhibiting the development of renewable energy in Ireland.

"Except for a few very big projects, all bioenergy schemes are connected via ESB Networks, " she said.

However, Brendan Ogle, spokesman for the biggest union in the ESB, the ATGWU, which is opposed to any form of separation of the national grid from the state company, said the complaints against ESB Networks "didn't amount to a hill of beans".

He said the decision to separate Eirgrid from the ESB but not ESB Networks showed that the government's plans were illogical. "They will have no effect in reducing costs to the consumer. The only reason the competition want Eirgrid separated is that they look at it as a means of damaging the ESB."

A spokesman for ESB Networks said that the organisation had operated separately from the ESB since 2002. He said most of the complaints against it to CER arose from difficulties obtaining planning permission for connections.

He also said the standards demanded by ESB Network for connections were high "for very definite reasons, including safety and the security of supply".