Dr. David Connolly:

As briefly as possible, I might give a synopsis of where we are, after 15 years of trying to inject life into this sector, and what has become the ultimate bottleneck. Believe it or not, we have been talking about doing something at scale throughout that period. The crux of this comes down to what happens when we decide to build infrastructure for €50 million or €100 million that is the spine of the network, on the basis we hope to persuade sufficient numbers of customers to connect to it in order that we can pay for that infrastructure in which we will have invested. In a context such as in Ireland, where that has never been done, it is a fairly high-risk environment to be in. At the moment, the only people able even to consider undertaking such a project are a local authority, given it is the only body that is allowed to put any kind of infrastructure in the road. In Europe, that is probably one of five to ten types of business models we could choose from, with the other four to five or six to seven, depending on which report we read among the reports that put some of these business models on the table, being a mix of some kind of private entity and a local authority working together. They tend to be brought together because the former is typically more comfortable with risk, while the latter is central to any kind of a district heating network being rolled out.

As of today, however, a private entity in Ireland is not allowed to put a district heating pipe in the road. There is no licence for which it can apply to say it wants to put a pipe in the road. I have been on sites sitting across from homes that could heat hundreds of thousands of homes if the developer were allowed to put a pipe in the road in front of them, but nobody is even looking at that in great detail, other than a few of us in the Irish District Energy Association, because they know they could not put the pipe in the road even if they found out it was a good idea. The number one ask of the Irish District Energy Association, therefore, following a survey of members towards the end of last year, is to have sight, as soon as possible, that a mechanism is coming that will allow people to put a pipe in the road. In our view, there is absolutely no shortage of low-hanging fruit projects, but there is a signal at the moment to the effect that even when you find one, and I have seen them, you will not be allowed to do it.

The natural question is why we do not just let local authorities lead it all, but that is a very challenging step for a local authority to take with a project that deals with a sector it has never seen. There is not really a strong competency in Ireland to do it, and we would have to dedicate significant bandwidth within the local authority to take in that kind of competency and undertake a project of that scale and technical complexity when there is no experience of it in Ireland. It would be very different if we were at, say, 15% district heating and we had even a small ecosystem of people who could be called on. This is not a view I developed only in recent months. I formed it having been in the district heating space in Ireland for the past ten to 15 years and dealing with many different versions of trying to see the sector start.

Dr. David Connolly: As briefly as possible, I might give a synopsis of where we have got to, after 15 years of trying to inject life into this sector, and what has become the ultimate bottleneck. Believe it or not, we have been talkjing about doing something at scale throughout that period. The crux of this comes down to what happens when we decide to build infrastrucutre for €50 million or €100 million that is the spine of the network on the basis we will, we hope, convince sufficient numbers of customers to connect to it in order that we can pay for the infrasturcutre in which we have invested.... In a context such as in Ireland, where it has never been done, it is a fairly high-risk environment to be in, and at the moment the road.

This is the crossroads we have constantly hit, whereby only one type of entity is at present enabled to do it, and all other entities that would like to do it are not allowed to do it. In our view, the way this industry could go, from putting in a couple of kilometres of pipework a year on average to putting in 100 km, 200 km or 300 km, as other countries of our size in Europe are putting in, is to facilitate the fact both types of ownership could work.

I would be surprised if only those types of projects ended up being developed. What I can see happening is the same outcome that has happened in many other European countries, whereby as soon as both types are facilitated, partnerships and mixes will emerge all over the place because there is no way this can happen without that happening. I can go into more detail, because I am conscious of having the floor for too long, but there are oceans of examples of this. We could not supply 70 million customers throughout Europe with this infrastructure without every type of mix of partnership and business model being in existence today. There are oceans of examples of how it could be done, but the mistake we are making in Ireland is that we are simply not allowing 60% or 70% of the horses that could run the race to run, and that has led us to a very difficult set of circumstances.