Community Engagement in Sustainable Energy

In order to capture the best degree of transformational potential in the energy sector, it is imperative that those most vulnerable are not excluded from the energy transition. A huge potential for community energy initiatives, which include necessary factors in meeting national energy targets such as energy conservation, efficiency and renewable energy, continue to remain unmet. Allowing citizens to participate in the energy transition can bring about social and economic benefits as well as abilities to overcome obstacles to the adoption and deployment of renewable energy by harnessing potential in meeting anticipated strong growth in energy demand over the period to 2030.

The recent Oireachtas report on Climate Action puts forward recommendations made by the Citizens Assembly that directly pertains to citizen engagement in the transition to a sustainable low carbon based energy transition. These recommendations include:

• That the State enact for the selling back into the grid of electricity from micro-generation by private citizens (energy from solar panels or wind turbines on people’s homes or land) at a price which is at least equivalent to the wholesale price.

• That State should act to ensure the greatest possible levels of community ownership in all future renewable energy projects by encouraging communities to develop their own projects and by requiring that developer-led projects make share offers to communities to encourage greater local involvement and ownership. 

• The Citizens Assembly also agreed that emphasis should be placed on providing information to all areas of society through a variety of formats that encourages people to make changes to the aspects of their behaviour which impact on climate change by highlighting the benefits of taking action (e.g. economic, social, health etc.). 

The Joint Committee on Climate Action backs up the Citizens Assembly by providing further proposals that act towards achieving these recommendations and also provide solutions towards barriers that may arise. Some of these proposals include: 

• The establishment of  a personalised Local Energy Agency service, such as that supplied by Tipperary Energy Agency or by the Money Advice Budgetary Service (MABS) in the context of climate action.

• The speedy rollout of the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) smart metering programme so that customers are given access to all energy services by 2020.

• The provision of accessible advice to homeowners, business and communities by  Local energy agencies and community energy groups such as the Sustainable Energy Communities (SECs) that can act as trusted intermediaries and,

• The introduction of an appropriate tariff set which would reward householders and enterprises for supplying electricity to the grid.