Dr Jeanne Moore and Dr Larry O’Connell addressed the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection, Rural and Community Development on Wednesday, 4th February.
Drawing on recent work on energy poverty, connecting people to the energy transition, and energy communities, their opening statement (read here) informed the Committee of some the Council’s recommendations to support a fair and inclusive energy transition in Ireland.
NESC were joined by representatives from Galway’s NetZeroCities Pilot Cities project. The preceding session included contributions from Energy Cloud.
Committee Members were particularly interested in how to scale up innovative pilot projects that connect households at risks of energy poverty with energy efficiency supports.
Topics explored by the Committee included:
- Approaches to increase delivery of energy efficiency and retrofits in communities nationally given the potential collective model presented by Galway involving local authorities and educational partners and scaling innovative projects (like the Warm Home Hub) to other local authorities to ensure that such initiatives are not lost once pilot funding expires;
- Operating an “energy guarantee” mechanism for low-income households, particularly in conjunction with prepay meters;
- Achieving buy-in from households resistant to change, particularly in the context of alternatives to solid fuel stoves. Exploring the use of smart technology, such as heat pumps and batteries, to utilise excess renewable energy as a tool to alleviate energy poverty; and
- Supporting those in rural Ireland who may lose power during extreme weather events in future using electric heating.
The further development of affordability, energy efficiency, and clean heat measures as well as how to increase local energy resilience are examined in NESC Council Report No. 170, which you can read now by clicking here.
Dr Moore outlined the potential role of energy communities as key local energy actors that can support the energy transition in rural Ireland, if enabled to do so. The potential for energy communities is further outlined in this Secretariat Paper.
You can watch the NESC team at the Committee (1hr 32 mins onwards) using the following link: https://media.heanet.ie/page/7b1ed63b3fd74f889865c4e0731e1026.