Dozens of ESB technicians are being deployed to France to assist in restoring power following Storm Ciarán.
Gale forces winds and gusts of up to 210 km/h hit the north-west of the country on Wednesday night, with coastal regions worst affected.
Some 1.2 million homes and businesses were left without electricity in the area, after power lines and pylons were knocked by falling trees.
French energy provider Enedis said power has been restored to 89% of the homes and businesses impacted by Storm Ciarán in the north-west of the country.
Some 137,200 of the customers remain without service today, mainly in the Brittany and Normandy regions.
The ESB crews, who travelled on the Irish Ferries WB Yeats vessel from Dublin Port, docked in Cherbourg this afternoon.
Enedis had sought the assistance of the ESB to help repair the damage.
In response to the appeal, ESB Networks sent 48 network technicians and support staff from across the country to support their French counterparts.
Some of the crews sailing to Cherbourg from Dublin Port yesterday, with more due to leave from Rosslare and Cork over the coming days.
It is expected their services will be required on the ground for around a week.
There is longstanding cooperation in place with electricity network operators in Ireland, the UK and France in providing such support.
The Managing Director of ESB Networks said the ESB has "a proud track record of responding to storm events in Ireland."
Nicholas Tarrant said ESB crews also support neighbouring countries if requested by electricity network operators following major storm damage.
In 2021, ESB crews assisted in power restoration in England and Scotland following Storm Arwen and Storm Barra, while around 150 ESB staff were last sent to France in 1999 in response to an appeal for assistance from the French government.
Technicians from France have also previously travelled to Ireland as part of the international arrangement.
The ESB said French crews "provided considerable support to ESB Networks" to restore electricity after Storm Ophelia in 2017, predominantly in west and north Cork.
The Safety, Health and Wellbeing Manager of ESB Networks said the Irish team will be supporting their colleagues in France in the storm repair work.
Alan Kelly said: "With such damage done, they rely on highly skilled workers in such a high risk activity.
"The speed of restoring supply is really, really important.
"We're very proud of our competence here in ESB Networks and we can be relied on to work with them and work to their safe systems of work in a proper manner."
Speaking after he briefed the crews travelling to France at the ESB Finglas Depot in Dublin, Mr Kelly said he expects the cooperation arrangement will become more frequent.
"There is no doubt we can expect, due to climate change, that we will probably be expecting support in future years, so we are more than proud to support our colleagues in Europe at this time," he said.
Asked could the allocation of crews to France impact operations here, he said management have "risk assessed that and we've looked at the medium term forecasts, so we're quite comfortable with the numbers that we're sending, which is small in the bigger picture of what we have, along with our contracting partners.
"So we're well prepared and of course, we can return quite quickly if needed."
Frank Murphy, an ESB Networks Area Manager, said the crews assisting in the restoration of power are highly experienced.
He said the terrain in Brittany and Normandy will be "pretty similar to what our crews are used to here" and the network configuration in France is also similar to Ireland's network, aside from the use of concrete poles.
Mr Murphy said the ESB crews are well placed to deal with the aftermath of a storm.
"Being Atlantic facing we're well used to storms," he said.
"We faced many of them in the past ourselves and even a number of them this year already. So, the crews that we're sending are well used to these challenges that we will face with safety being our core value."
He said he expects the crews from Ireland will be mostly dealing with overhead linework damage.
