Mr. Jim Scheer:

I thank the Chairman and committee members for the invitation to make a presentation today. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, is Ireland’s national energy authority. A central part of the SEAI’s remit is to contribute to the evidence base for policymaking in Ireland. This is supported by statistics and modelling functions based on a range of data sources, including the collection of data from programmes delivered by the SEAI on behalf of the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment across the household and business sectors. This work encompasses a focus on energy supply and use and hence energy related emissions.

In the context of the debate on the Bill at hand, in our submission we provided some statistics that highlight the extent to which we rely on fossil fuel energy use in Ireland at present and the associated CO2 emissions. Some 92% of our energy demand is delivered by fossil fuels.

This accounts for 61% of total green gas emissions in Ireland with the remainder mostly in agriculture. Since Corrib gas has come online, Ireland's reliance on imports reduced to 69% of total energy requirement. This is an improvement on the longer-term average of approximately 90% import dependence. We import all of our oil, and in the next few years as Corrib gas depletes, our reliance on imported gas will return to the historic average. The SEAI's statistical overview of energy security in Ireland, published in 2016, includes an energy supply and demand index as a measure of medium to long-term energy security over the entire energy system. An overall decreasing trend or worsening security is observed between 2000 and 2014, largely due to the increased shares of oil and gas ultimately sourced from outside the EU and OECD. Increased renewable energy penetration from local sources and greater levels of energy efficiency serve to improve this index by reducing Ireland's exposure to variations in prices of imported fossil fuels.

Looking closer at the data and focusing on energy supply, 56% of natural gas used in Ireland in 2016 was used in combined-cycle gas turbines to produce our electricity. This gas-fired generation provides system flexibility and other essential grid services to enable high levels of variable renewable penetration. These technologies reduce emissions from electricity generation. In 2016, the level of avoided emissions from renewables on our electricity system was in excess of 3.4 million tonnes.

Focusing on the end-use sectors, we have around 800,000 homes and more than 25,000 businesses that use natural gas for heating and some high intensity industrial processes. Our transport sector is almost totally reliant on imported fossil fuels and is on a longer-term course to move passenger vehicles to electricity and freight and aviation to biofuels and biomethane.

There is a current and ongoing demand for fossil fuels in Ireland on both the energy supply and demand side. In our submission we provided a limited selection of international and national references, illustrating a range of future energy scenarios globally. What is evident from them all is that, in the long run, we need to reduce our fossil fuels to very low levels at least by mid-century. In scenarios specific to Ireland produced by UCC, where we contribute our share as part of the EU commitment on the Paris Agreement, three important but very much linked points or assumptions are crucial for decision-makers to understand. First is that the UCC Paris scenarios indicate that fossil fuels can play a role over the period to 2050 but must be on a decreasing long-term trend. At the same time as reducing fossil fuel use, according to the same projections, we must significantly scale up energy efficiency improvements across the economy and deployment rates of renewable energy sources for heat, electricity and transport starting now. If we continue to use fossil fuels to support renewables and provide heat and transport services in the medium to long term, they must be accompanied by technologies such as carbon capture and storage, somewhere between 2040 and 2050. If we delay on decarbonisation, the challenge becomes greater.

Our long-term carbon commitments mean we have a finite carbon budget. Any delay in the shift to sustainable energy technologies and practices means more emissions in the next few years, leaving less in the budget for the future. This means that we will have to eliminate fossil fuels sooner than the current scenarios indicate and the adoption of more expensive carbon capture and storage, CCS, and negative emissions technologies will need to occur sooner, so this will increase the cost of decarbonisation in the long term.

The SEAI's own modelling in the context of our role in producing national energy projections which inform the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, national emissions projections highlight the anticipated impact of current Government policies and measures. In the latest EPA publication, 2018 projections estimate a 47 million tonnes to 52 million tonnes shortfall on current EU emissions reduction targets for Ireland to 2030. This analysis will be updated to include the impact of more recently announced policy and measures by the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment in the context of the national development plan. These will go some way to closing that gap but will not do so fully.

There are a number of measures that can be undertaken to make a significant difference now. First, in energy efficiency, most often the cheapest and most secure unit of energy is the one you do not use. A strong programme of energy efficiency is under way across the household, business and public sectors. This is yielding results and there is remaining potential to redouble efforts on energy efficiency across all sectors.

On renewable electricity, we anticipate that we will be close to our 40% target for renewable electricity by 2020 and we are modelling 55% renewable electricity to 2030. Others suggest that more may be possible. EirGrid is leading the way internationally on this and we have one of the highest penetrations of variable non-synchronised renewable generation in the world.

On decarbonising gas supply, actions to enable low-cost sustainable biomethane injection into the gas grid hold promise.

That could further reduce the carbon intensity of electricity, given our gas use in the electricity sector and in heating. Our support scheme for renewable heat will soon be launched to support Irish businesses looking to switch to renewable forms of heating such as solid biomass, a low cost form of renewable energy.

Another initiative that will be required is the delivery of district heating networks in our cities and towns that make use of heat currently being wasted, for example, utilising waste heat from the Poolbeg waste to energy facility in Dublin. On transport, accelerated delivery of electric vehicles and increases to biofuel blends can have an impact. Finally, and, importantly, will be the establishment of long-term carbon pricing signals to drive investment across all sectors of the economy, combined with policies to support the less well-off who could be disproportionately impacted by resultant price increases. These examples are just a short list of what is possible and should be pursued from now.

Bringing these points back to the Bill under consideration, we acknowledge the current and likely ongoing role of gas, both as a heat source and an enabler of high penetrations of renewable electricity as illustrated in current practice and in the modelling; the need to minimise the negative environmental impact of ongoing fossil fuel use which could include, for example, using local sources of gas where they are found to be less carbon intense that imports; the need for accelerated deployment of renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency to enhance security of supply and, in the context of our commitment to the Paris Agreement, the range of existing analysis and the inherent uncertainty in scenario modelling.

On the basis of those points, we encourage debate to ensure the Bill includes sufficient flexibility so as not to eliminate the possibility of utilising local non-renewable energy resources where such use may be deemed the best option for the State and where it recognises our climate commitments and security of energy supply considerations for the long term.