Energy Transition an Economic Opportunity for Communities

In the absence of strong political leadership on the issue, state initiatives lack boldness on the energy transition and community energy. Leadership is required to switch to a decentralised locally produced and owned energy system which can remake the economy of the country and make Irish citizens healthier and wealthier.

The discussions at the Citizens’ Assembly on Climate change are providing an opportunity to take stock of where we really are. Far from being a leader on climate change, much of the usual debate on the subject is full of the dull language of grudging obligations to meet targets being (unjustly) imposed by foreign bodies, like the EU or International organisations. This type of immature language is used right throughout the published National Climate Change Mitigation Plan and in other policy documents. Through this dull and uninspiring approach, we are on track to miss most of the international commitments that we have made, across a range of areas, including renewable energy. This simply does not motivate most people.

Too long our communities have been excluded from the benefits of renewable energy, and could be forgiven for feeling that talk of an energy transition is really about the transfer of wealth from communities to developers and landowners. Campaigns against pylons and wind turbines are a reaction to the Irish State’s corporate model of renewable energy, where projects are largely foisted on many parts of the country with little or no local input and no benefits.

Even when projects do build in local ownership and benefits, lack of clear national guidelines are often a barrier. This was the case in a community wind project I worked on in Waterford recently. The ongoing review of Wind Development Guidelines were a shifting ground offering no clarity on issues of public concern, issues on which the project ultimately fell.

Alas, this lack of clarity and singular vision relates not only to wind. Whether on planning, land use, agriculture, energy, our left hand hardly knows not what the right is doing. Our Department of Agriculture encouraged hundreds of Irish farmers to plant energy crops expecting a government Renewable Heat Incentive which was promised 5 years ago. It still hasn’t happened. The division and silo-thinking (which is a political responsibility) between our departments of energy and agriculture mean that there is no clarity for potential producers and processors of energy.

SEAI’s Sustainable Energy Communities and Better Energy Communities Programmes are steps in the right direction. These steps offer some technical and capital support for projects. However, there is still no explicit state commitment to develop a decentralised fully locally owned energy system. The new Renewable Energy Support Scheme (RESS) being proposed by the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment looks like it will continue the Irish state's model of corporate-owned renewables, with token support for community involvement and ownership. Community benefit feels like something we’re having to do. Rather than getting it at a deep and transformative level.

An inspiring approach would be to create a national movement for energy independence in Ireland. Models for such a movement are not difficult to find. Germany now has more than a quarter of its electricity from renewable energy; more than half of the total installed renewable energy capacity is locally owned, with almost 1000 renewable energy cooperatives established. Imagine what that means for the resilience of the local economy of Germany? Ireland is still thinking about what it should do.

Our green industrial revolution should be based on local and regional co-operatives, backed up by local Government and a national energy board office, similar to the movement founded by Horace Plunkett over 100 years ago in the agricultural sector, where, in just 10 years from 1885 to 1895, over 300 cooperatives were established with over 300,000 members.

Energy must be seen as a service to society, not as a means of wealth-extraction by private companies or state monopolies, facilitated by the state. People can be mobilised behind a vision of energy independence and sovereignty, and the benefits it brings. While civil servants understand the extent of the technical challenge, they lack the leadership from politicians who have not provided the necessary vision and commitment to energy democracy.

To achieve this requires bold decision making on land-use and energy and greater coordination between the departments of Energy and Agriculture (we should even consider joining up these departments). Among the other radical steps, we need to kickstart decentralised energy production, by allowing priority grid access for community energy; support microgeneration by introducing legislation allowing medium-size licensed energy suppliers and easing ComReg’s collateral requirements on community energy supply companies.

There must also be support for those that have worked hard to secure energy sovereignty for the Irish people over the last few decades. We need set up Just and Fair Transition Commission where the rights of workers and local communities are protected against the impact of factory closures (such as the workers in Bord na Mona Peat Factories in Littleton in Tipperary).

We need to make the transition about improving the welfare of our people, to make Ireland a fairer, greener, wealthier country. Localising ownership of the means of energy production, and localising the benefits. Let’s do it.

Gearóid Fitzgibbon is a specialist in community energy.