Challenges to Achieving a National Sustainable Energy Transition

Energy Security Factors

International Energy Agency webpage ©

Energy Security Factors
International Energy Agency webpage ©

Energy Security Factors

International Energy Agency webpage ©

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Ireland faces challenges in achieving sustainability in the energy sector due to our small energy market, its peripherality and limitations to domestic fuel resources. Nevertheless, recent discussions from the Oireachtas from Joint Committee on Climate Action highlight how the island of Ireland is one of the most fungible countries in the EU for renewable energy sources, due to its location. Bioenergy resources are also available and viable options towards a sustainable energy pathway (EPA, 2018). The recent 2019 Oireachtas report titled Ireland’s energy transition – challenges and opportunities’ highlights what it perceives to be the main challenges to ireland's energy transition these include issues of energy security; meeting climate commitments;  energy costs and their significance; sectoral issues; and physical infrastructure and employment opportunities. Discussion in the report on these challenges as well as potential opportunities can be found here.

Despite Ireland's range of options and impressive performance to date on renewable energy (10.6% of Ireland's overall share of  energy came from renewable energy in 2017), we are still off course to meeting renewable energy targets for 2020, set out in the 2007 White Paper (SEAI, 2019). Sustained economic growth and population growth also add to the challenges for Irish energy policy. Taking these issues into consideration, new thinking and systemic change across government will be required that calls for a stronger policy signal to allow Ireland to shift to lower carbon fuels in electricity generation, according to the EPAs most recent research report on Energy Sector Governance in Ireland.

Suggestions made from the most recent SEAI and EPA reports to enhance the sustainability of Ireland's energy sector include:

• The need to consider whether standard cost– benefit analysis is an appropriate instrument for policy evaluation.

• The need to incorporate a meaningful price on carbon that is  deliverable through the EU Emissions Trading Scheme

• A stronger framework to increase community engagement on sustainable energy that aggregate and disseminate lessons from on-the-ground experimentation. 

• The need to adopt district heating systems and sustainable bioenergy for heating.

• The need to transition to a largely electrified passenger fleet for commercial, public and freight transport. Alternative fuels i.e. biogas and hydrogen must be considered for incorporation into this new transport system.  

• Policy makers  must take care to ensure that the correct application of bioenergy across sectors is taken and that land system change brought about to produce biomass does not result in  unintended negative consequences elsewhere, that ensures decreased rather than increased greenhouse gas emissions (SEAI, 2019)