Mr. Paul Kenny:

I thank the committee for its time. I have prepared a submission that broadly covers the Bill. The energy transition is not about just one technology. Rather, it will take myriad forms beyond Government policy. It must happen to every house, every journey, every building and every citizen. In order for the transition to take hold, every one of these little opportunities must be taken. To date, no regulatory decision made or funding programme employed has been done in a way that engages citizens. We are all aware that, while much has happened, Ireland is clearly the climate laggard of Europe. We have a fraction of what the rest of Europe has in terms of solar PV and other deployments of technology. We have a huge hill to climb. The State needs to take opportunities, one of which is microgeneration. Notwithstanding the fact that it has to happen anyway in the renewable energy package, this opportunity should be taken as soon as possible.

As part of its deliberation on the Bill, the committee will be told by various parties that solar energy will not be sufficient for Ireland, we do not get much sun and we need a great deal of energy in winter. Last June, the UK and Germany hit records for solar energy use, yet we hit records for gas use because there was no wind. We need a mix. Solar energy produces approximately 7% of Germany's electricity, with in or around two solar panels per person. If Ireland was to catch up with Germany, that ratio would effectively provide for 10% to 12% of Ireland's electricity use and could be higher with some storage. In Germany, 73% of this capacity, or 98% of systems, is small scale at less than 100 kW. Germany has a more robust electricity infrastructure, and this microgeneration is predominantly citizen and farmer based.

We in the Tipperary Energy Agency believe that we should allow our citizens to partake in this energy transition and should view homes, farms and SMEs as part of the generation infrastructure. The figure for rooftop solar in the North is approximately 50%, but I could not find the exact details.

Many members of the committee have visited buildings in Tipperary, including a leisure centre and school, that had small solar arrays on large, but otherwise empty, roofs. It would have been more economically advantageous to put a full array on each roof when scaffolding and incurring transaction costs. Why would we not use that generation to subsidise the running of such public facilities?

A number of barriers need to be removed if the Bill is to be effective. Rather than increasing costs, we should remove them before the Bill is enacted. We must ensure mandated power purchase agreements; that each meter, as part of the smart meter roll-out, has its export channel switched on, as it is currently switched off unless one pays €300 to have it switched on; and that our planning permission system is revised. In that context, I have submitted a paper containing some advice that we received from planners in Ireland. It is on the record now. The revision can happen quickly.

Grants for solar PV on domestic buildings would be a good measure. It could also be a payment, but if the market soundings pointed to the grant being a better idea, we would support that. However, export should be paid at at least the wholesale price. We should allow people to generate as much as they can sensibly on a roof within the cost-effective nature of the technology. For commercial enterprises like farms and SMEs, though, we should probably use something like a solar feed-in tariff, with a wholesale price plus an appropriate uplift that makes the investment attractive but not overly costly. The State would only be paying to subsidise the export. Someone installing a large solar farm would have to pay for all of that generation. However, if someone installed 6 kW generation on a house and used three quarters of it, the State would only be paying for the small bit that household exported. We would get much more bang for our buck, as this scheme could be cheaper than the larger arrays.

The reasons the committee will be given for not supporting solar energy in this way will always start with the challenge of spending money on upgrading the grid. Given that we must move from approximately 18% of our energy through electricity to somewhere in the region of 40% to 50%, depending on which model one uses in the electrification of heat and transport, the grid will have to transform. It needs to be digitised and to have the transmission capacity to power cars and heat pumps. We believe that the grid capacity should be in a position to grow gradually to accommodate both. That study has not been done in Ireland, but it is put on the regulators' asset bases across the rest of Europe. We would support that here.

Members will hear a great deal about support schemes being expensive. Due to expensive German support schemes, though, that will not be the case. We are not Germany. We are not Australia and will not have solar power in the winter. Australia is much closer to the equator than us. Therefore, most of our homes will stay connected to the electricity grid. One of the arguments is that they will disconnect from the grid, but that will not happen in Ireland because we do not get much sun in the four winter months.

We should put citizens first, encourage active prosumers and use the rooftops as an encouragement to unlock the energy transition. Someone spilling electricity onto the grid would view an electric car or heat pump as a good use of that power, but we should still incentivise people a little.

Solar is not a silver bullet for energy. It will only cover a fraction of our total energy use. However, it may be the silver bullet of citizen and societal engagement in the energy transition that the State has heretofore missed. Why would it not be? It was in Germany.

The energy transition is not going to happen without market development supports from organisations like local energy agencies. Any rapid societal transformation requires societal support. The modernisation of agriculture did not happen without large-scale State intervention in training and modernisation. There are local services for the provision of myriad State services, from schools and MABS to childcare committees and sports partnerships. Without that societal support, governed and run to achieve a transition, it will be almost impossible to achieve the requisite change at a societal level. I ask this and the parallel committee to consider supporting energy agencies at a local or regional level with a strong public remit.