The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), which was established under the Sustainable Energy Act 2002, is Ireland's current national energy authority. Its associated statutory functions range across areas of energy efficiency, energy technology and innovation, and is responsible for the decarbonisation of energy supply, including renewables. It allocates approximately an annual rate of €100 million in capital funding that supports the deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency measures nationally.

This delivery agency also supports research, development and deployment of sustainable energy technologies which include bioenergy and combined heat and power, ocean energy and electric vehicles (SEAI, 2019). Large scale public programmes with funding have been delivered by the SEAI, which involve Better Energy Communities and Sustainable Energy Communities programmes that focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland recognises the role of “energy citizens” in ensuring the achievement of a sustainable decarbonised national energy system and has considered the inclusion of actions that channel networks between citizens/communities and the state to strengthen its role as Ireland Sustainable Energy Authority (EPA, 2018).

Grid Infrastructure for Ireland's Sustainable Energy Transition

The Grid25 strategy, which was established by Eirgrid in 2008, sets a roadmap to uprate the electricity transmission grid by 2025. This strategy was premised on projections for growth in electricity demand before the 2008 economic recession. It has since revised its plans for grid development with the aims to increase grid capacity, satisfy future demand and aid national energy based targets that take a sustainability approach to the sector. It also incorporates plans to deal with increased opposition from local communities. EirGrid’s revised grid development strategy, published in early 2017, is committed to using new and emerging technologies to enhance the capacity of existing grid infrastructure (EirGrid, 2017). Its DS3 Programme titled “Delivering a Secure, Sustainable Electricity System”, was created to tackle arising challenges associated with managing a grid that will secure increasing levels of non-synchronous renewable electricity (Eirgrid, 2015). These efforts are based on the task of hitting national EU 2020 renewable energy targets that will require Ireland to source 40% of its total national energy supply from renewables by the year 2020.