Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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It is my responsibility as Cathaoirleach to ensure that privilege is not abused. If witnesses' statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person or entity, by name or in such as way as to make him, her or it, identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity.

Members are also reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person or entity outside the Houses or an official, either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

The committee will now consider the impact of energy poverty and the retrofitting of homes in rural and urban areas. This is the third meeting the committee has held on this topic, with the fourth meeting to be held next week. Today, we will consider innovative measures to address fuel poverty in advance of retrofitting homes. We will also consider what measures can be carried out on homes that are unsuitable for deep retrofits or where the cost of such retrofits is beyond the reach of home owners. Members are always interested in new and emerging innovations in this sector and are eager to hear from the witnesses regarding the challenges they have faced and any potential solutions they may have.

I welcome Mr. John Mullins, chairperson of EnergyCloud Ireland, Mr. Cathal Lee, co-founder of EnergyCloud Ireland, and Ms Laura McDonnell, Clúid Housing. From Irish Rural Link, I welcome Mr. Seamus Boland, CEO, and Ms Louise Lennon, policy and communications officer. I invite Mr. Mullins to make his opening statement.

Mr. John Mullins:

On behalf of EnergyCloud Ireland, I thank the committee for the invitation to discuss the important subject of energy poverty. As members know, EnergyCloud Ireland was established as a not-for-profit social enterprise to specifically help to tackle energy poverty by using surplus renewable energy. We salute the Chair and members for directing the committee's work programme to this important topic.

Last week, the committee heard from the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications about how the key concern relating to energy costs is to protect the most vulnerable. That is why EnergyCloud was created. At EnergyCloud, our mission is to create solutions to use surplus renewable energy, which would otherwise be wasted, and redirect it to homes in fuel poverty. EnergyCloud Ireland is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee and supported by EirGrid, ESB Networks, Wind Energy Ireland, SSE Airtricity, Clúid Housing and many others. To date, the organisation has been volunteer-led. The process to register it as a charity is under way. To enable EnergyCloud Ireland to support more families in energy poverty across Ireland, we are putting a full-time executive team in place.

The ESRI report on energy poverty and deprivation in Ireland highlights that more than 550,000 households are in energy poverty, with that figure increasing. Using a factor of 2.3, that is equivalent to 1.3 million people, which illustrates the scale of the problem and the need for creative solutions to address the crisis. The energy price crisis hurts all consumers but, most of all, those who are already struggling and in energy poverty. As successive ESRI and Government reports have illustrated, there has been significant energy poverty in Ireland for many years. The recent energy crisis has had a further adverse impact on this. We have heard from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul about people choosing between eating and heating. People having to choose between heating their home or eating is not something we, as a society, should tolerate. We can and must do more. That is what motivates the volunteer team present and those on the board of EnergyCloud Ireland.

In a separate submitted document we have outlined the astounding volume of surplus renewable wind energy in Ireland in recent years. Some 5,700 GWh of zero carbon renewable wind energy has been dispatched down or curtailed since 2018. In the first ten months of 2023, 724 GWh of wind energy was wasted in Ireland. The retail value of this wasted renewable energy is an astounding €250 million. Approximately 240 million tanks of hot water could have been heated with this wasted energy. Even as late as last night, 4,800 GWh - equivalent to 1.3 million tanks - would have been heated by the surplus renewable energy.

In 2021, the first homes were connected to EnergyCloud in a pilot project with Clúid Housing which was launched by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien. Working with Clúid Housing and with the support of Amazon Web Services, a major expansion was launched in 2023 by the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan.

Last summer, the first EnergyCloud project with a local authority, Fingal County Council, was announced. In addition, SSE Airtricity has generously committed €2.5 million to EnergyCloud Ireland to support families in fuel poverty. What is the benefit for individual families? Throughout 2023, families in Clúid Housing, who are part of the EnergyCloud scheme, were able to receive a free tank of hot water on 115 separate nights. This was the number of times last year that significant curtailment of wind energy took place. All of this was possible due to the support of EirGrid, ESB Networks and key partners such as Amazon Web Services, Bord Gáis Energy, Prepay Power and SSE Airtricity, which are supporting families in energy poverty through the EnergyCloud initiative.

EnergyCloud is fully aligned with the climate action plan to deliver 80% of Ireland’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030. As the country has a focus on sustainable energy production, and is committed to implementing its climate action plan, we believe EnergyCloud provides the opportunity to make Ireland a leader in creating solutions for surplus energy, rather than simply switching off wind turbines and solar panels.

Access to free renewable energy means that households that are part of the EnergyCloud project can simultaneously save money on electricity while reducing their use, and our use, of fossil fuels. This is a win-win-win situation.

The energy poverty action plan contains a range of measures to support and protect those in energy poverty or who are at risk of energy poverty. EnergyCloud should be part of the revised energy poverty action plan which will be published soon. EnergyCloud will engage with the Department as part of the consultation on this. We also believe that EnergyCloud should be a key component of the national retrofit plan.

Getting homes EnergyCloud ready allows technology solutions to be deployed to homes at risk of energy poverty, thereby reducing renewable energy wastage and displacing oil- and gas-fired systems while delivering a social good to heat hot water in fuel-poor homes. The introduction of smart meters is key to enabling those technological solutions.

From our perspective, EnergyCloud is, as I said, a win-win-win for Ireland. EnergyCloud can help Ireland's legally binding net zero emissions targets under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021.

We are surrounded by vast natural resources in Ireland and working together we can reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and reduce our carbon emissions while at the same time improving the lives of those who live in consistent fuel poverty across Ireland by utilising surplus renewable energy. We do this by using existing infrastructure and surplus renewable energy to help tackle energy poverty for thousands of families, helping to increase our overall percentage of renewable energy use and at the same time helping to reduce our carbon emissions. The energy is being produced and, regrettably, discarded, yet every property in the State is connected and can use this energy. We have the technology to do this while targeting a specific section of Irish society, namely, those in fuel poverty.

To date, a large number of local authorities, approved housing bodies and charities have signalled their intention to participate in a scheme to enable their homes to become EnergyCloud ready. Combined, and without a push on our part, approximately 75,000 homes with over 180,000 tenants are now registered with EnergyCloud.

We have provided the committee with a number of additional documents. The first is an overview of how EnergyCloud works from a technical point of view; the second is from my colleague, Ms Laura McDonnell from Clúid Housing, with direct feedback from its residents who are benefitting from EnergyCloud; and the third has details of the astounding volume of renewable wind energy that has been wasted in Ireland in recent years. As a practitioner in energy, I can say that curtailment is likely to increase in the coming years without enabling infrastructure.

Mr. Seamus Boland:

I thank the Cathaoirleach for the opportunity to be here with my colleague, Ms Louise Lennon. We are a part of Irish Rural Link, IRL, which was founded in 1991 and the main aim of which is to allow for sustainable living in rural Ireland. We worry a great deal about those experiencing disadvantage and poverty. We have approximately 600 members who are actually community groups and, cumulatively, that can go to a much higher number. They represent the basic membership of IRL and we are in every county.

We welcome this opportunity to address the committee because we have made many statements about energy poverty, particularly as it applies to rural areas. Energy poverty has always been associated with low, inadequate income. Over recent years, other factors, such as location, tenure, household composition, era of construction and the type of fuel used are also considered to contribute to energy poverty rather than the opposite. The recent energy crisis highlighted the vulnerability of low-income rural households to high energy prices, with research showing that these households were most at risk of poverty. These households have always been at risk of energy poverty. The size and nature of the housing stock, especially older housing, make rural households more vulnerable. We must accept that the housing stock in rural Ireland is a lot older. Up to 80% of the housing stock was built before the 1980s. A high percentage is much older than that. It is housing that is almost impossible to heat without serious renovation.

We are going to talk about a group of approximately 100,000 households. I will give the committee some of the background even though we have supplied it. We did some community engagement programmes in 2013. We went directly to over 100,000 households that we estimated as being in poverty, an estimation later confirmed by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI. Approximately 400,000 rural households still need help in respect of energy. That needs to be said.

There are still many households with no central heating. Census 2022 figures showed that over 21,000 households had no central heating. There is still a high dependency on peat, including turf, as the main source of heat in the homes of almost 68,000 households. This is higher, at over 28,000 incidences, among households whose occupants are over the age of 65. Almost 7,000 people over the age of 65 are living in homes with no central heating or with no heating at all. This should be of grave concern to the committee and requires immediate action. People have died as a result of hypothermia. There were approximately 36 such cases last year, if I am not mistaken. That is how serious the situation is.

IRL welcomes the retrofitting programme but believes a more targeted approach is needed if we are to tackle seriously the crisis of home heating before us. In 2023, under the fully funded energy upgrades scheme, only 13,983 applications were received. Given the scale of the problem, one would expect more applications. Only 5,898 properties have been upgraded. Those who promote these schemes talk about a 140% increase but one can do the maths in respect of a 140% increase on two. We stick to these numbers. Only 5,898 properties were managed and prioritised. Targeting these households as well as the worst performing homes first, by prioritising older homes with a building energy rating, BER, of E, F or G on the waiting list, must begin to happen.

Many of the barriers that existed when retrofitting first began are still in existence. Those include a lack of awareness and knowledge, and the cost of retrofitting. The average cost to bring a residential property from an E1 BER to an A3 BER is a minimum of €42,000 and we know those figures can reach as high as €64,000 and, in some cases, €80,000, as I am sure my colleagues know. The figure for retrofitting can be higher depending on the state and age of the house. There is a lack of competitiveness in the building industry and the biggest problem is finding a tradesperson to offer a quote. Without competition, prices are at the higher end.

We would like to make a number of recommendations because we are not just here to complain. We believe that raising awareness is a major issue. We held some roadshows, one of which was attended by Deputy Naughten, including a famous show in the Hodson Bay Hotel in July two years before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Everything is measured by reference to the pandemic. The Deputy will remember that the Hodson Bay Hotel on a very hot July day was packed with rural people who wanted to know more about retrofitting and how to transition their homes to more sustainable heating.

We did a number of those roadshows at the time, supported by the SEAI but, unfortunately, that support is gone. We are a voluntary organisation and we depend on the support we can get. We believe that programme should still be in operation. The only way to reach people is not through the Internet or emails, it is through physical meetings held in places. The Hodson Bay was absolutely jam-packed on a very hot Friday afternoon.

We also advocate physical one-stop clinics. We are talking about rural Ireland, which thanks to the Government, is getting broadband but it is still not there. We are also talking about a population which, due to another Government programme, is involved in training on computers. This is an age group that is still learning how to manage computer programmes, the Internet, and all of that. In rural Ireland, we are talking about a population that still wants to talk to the people on the ground who are either delivering programmes such as those delivered by my colleagues here or other programmes. Any time we hold these regional meetings we are inundated with people looking to know more. We do these community engagements on a regular basis. I will come to them in a moment. We did some on social enterprise last year, again in rural parts, mainly in the Cathaoirleach's constituency, as well as in other constituencies. Again, there were packed houses for each of them. Irish Rural Link knows how to do this.

We proposed a community energy outreach programme to the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications in 2022. This programme would be similar to previous community outreach programmes we have delivered, such as one on the digital switchover for the TV and one on the delivery of Eircodes. We also did a massive programme during Covid. We delivered volunteers on the ground in every single parish in the country. We visited more than 100,000 households. Each of those programmes was documented in an independent report.

We did some surveying in recent weeks in advance of today's meeting. We asked members if they know about the various programmes that are available. The vast majority still do not know. I do not think that is good enough in this day and age. The only way to do it is through community outreach programmes. We proved that with the programmes I just outlined.

Access to finance is one of the big barriers to making it happen. We see a greater role for credit unions. There are proposals out there. Up to yesterday we tried to find out if the European Investment Bank loans are still available. Members of the House may know more than I do but we could not nail down whether or not they are still available. Even when they are available, the one fault is that they are only available through the main banking structure, and not through the credit union structure. Why is that? We are simply asking that question because we believe that will turn off thousands of people straight away because of the complications and the bureaucracy in getting these types of loans and going to the main banking system, which has lost a lot of credibility in rural Ireland. I do not believe that is the way forward. Every credit union should have the wherewithal to start administering those loans immediately. There is a greater trust among rural people in credit unions than in the banking system, and that is the way forward.

We would also argue strongly that while the various grant facilities help quite a large number of the rural population but the 100,000 I mentioned are not helped. Even though you get a grant and it looks good, the reality is that if you have to pay in the region of €60,000 to €80,000 for a house makeover and between grants and everything else you get something like €65,000, but you still have to find the other €15,000 or €20,000. I am afraid that is beyond the means of that particular group of 100,000 people.

We believe that the Ireland of today should be capable of using a mixture of financing and grants to such a degree that the 100,000 could at least expect to avail of this programme. They would still be paying back some of it. They would not be getting it for nothing but they would be able to do so in the security that they do not lose their house as a result of this. From our surveys, people have got to understand that it is a big issue for people if they take out loans that they could possibly lose their house.

There are anomalies in the fuel allowance scheme. We recommend that the income thresholds for fuel allowance for over 70s be reviewed. We think this is essential. We are aware of cases where an older person living alone is not eligible for the allowance because their income is just above the threshold. We would ask for these issues to be immediately addressed. We hope that the committee would recommend another review, bearing in mind the increase in the cost of fuel and that income levels have not risen to any great extent.

We seriously ask for a review of the need for an increase in training and skills for tradespeople. There is a massive shortage of tradespeople, especially in rural areas. I know that from a personal perspective. As far as we are aware, there are only 36 contractors available for the fully-funded warmer homes grant scheme. That is quite a low number by any standards. A total of 36 contractors are available in this country to deliver that scheme. In that sense, we are in real trouble in terms of making the targets that we, this Government, and Ireland Inc. have contracted to and signed off on to address climate change, environmental change and transition.

We welcome our colleagues. We have not met them before. We hope to talk with them and others again. Like all the other entities, Irish Rural Link is committed to bringing the environmental change we need in rural Ireland. Rural Ireland should not be left behind, holding on to traditions that, frankly, are no good for the future. The future is changing the household stock in rural Ireland to be modern, self-sustaining and sustainable in terms of costs and energy. We believe that is the way forward. We strongly ask this committee to regard this as a major crisis. In total, more than 400,000 households in rural Ireland are not fit for purpose and 100,000 of those are seriously not fit for purpose for reasons of income and the age of the stock. I thank committee members for listening to us.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank Mr. Boland. I will now invite questions from members. Deputy Ó Cathasaigh was the first to indicate. Quite a number of members have expressed an interest in contributing this morning. I will take questions, followed by answers and, if needs be, I will bring people back in for a second round later.

Mr. John Mullins:

I will ask Ms McDonnell to deal with the customer side of things first.

Ms Laura McDonnell:

Thanks for the questions. This has been a very popular programme with Clúid residents. Energy poverty is more closely associated with social housing because of lower income in that area. As the Deputy rightly pointed out, sometimes people might not see the benefit of the changeover in these energy initiatives. We rolled it out to 338 households, and 152 are actively using it at the moment. They saw the benefit of 115 nights, as the chairman pointed out, and it is having a huge impact on their lives. The issue is that there is a huge challenge in terms of energy bills for our residents. Some are citing bills of around €100 per week. They simply do not have that money so some are debt to energy providers. They are making choices about where they spend their money, deciding whether they can afford to heat their homes. They cannot afford to heat them every night. They have to make choices about when they will have hot water and heat in their homes.

I will give the example of two particular residents we spoke to about how their lives have changed with it. Sharon Reville, one of our residents who lives in Clondalkin is very cautious about how she utilises energy in her home. She goes around turning off lights, makes sure she is not heating unoccupied rooms and unplugs devices to make sure they are not using energy. The impact the EnergyCloud has had on her life has been phenomenal. The benefit is that she can schedule when she is going to clean her house, have showers, and so on. It has given her peace of mind and made her life just a bit more comfortable. It has had a huge impact for her. Another resident, Obi Okasi, was gracious enough to allow me into her home to have a conversation about the impact the EnergyCloud has had on her life. She said it has been fantastic in terms of making it more affordable to clean and heat her home. The rising cost of food and energy has been very difficult to manage but what Obi does now is look out the window, check the weather forecast, make sure there is wind on the way and then she can plan her chores and cleaning around that. We have heard from a number of residents about storm or wind chasing whereby they are checking the weather forecast and planning their chores around that. It is of major benefit to them because it is making it more affordable.

Other nice stories that we hear include the fact that when they have a free tank of hot water, they are able to have a bath. Many of us in this room would think that it is really simple and something we could do every day but it is not. It is a real luxury for the people in our homes in Clúid to actually be able to have a bath. There are functional benefits in terms of chores and cleaning but there are also quality of life benefits. It has had a huge impact.

Mr. John Mullins:

I might add a couple of points. I thank the Deputy for his comments, which are greatly appreciated. On foot of Ms McDonnell's stories, we hope to have many more Sharons across the country benefitting from a fully automated, technical solution. At the moment what we have is a nominated solution. When a constraint is called by Eirgrid, we then have a trigger that states that the nominated persons, or tenants, are going to receive a credit for hot water. That is exactly how it works now. Clearly we need all of the agencies involved in the technical solution we are working on and thankfully, as I said already, ESB and Eirgrid are very much involved. We have the capability to be able to get an automated signal which says we are constraining wind power. A signal can be sent through a smart meter or an automated, app-enabled immersion controller. I would point out that 77% of Irish households have immersions. That signal would automatically switch in the tank and that is automatically 3 kW. Just to give a flavour of this, if we had 100,000 households switching in at the same time, that would actually save us 300 MW of discarded wind and solar energy.

Mr. John Mullins:

Yes, it is enormous. I know from investing in battery storage in France through my own company that a 300 MW battery would cost €150 million. We have this infrastructure already in place. All it needs is a very simple codified process with Eirgrid. Essentially, when curtailment is called, we do not have to take off as many wind farms but just switch in the tanks. The people we want to prioritise first are those in social housing and local authority housing. The people, as Ms McDonnell has said, who have actually taken this on board are seeing it in their bills now. There are many more people across the country who are on the margins of fuel poverty, estimated at around 550,000 households. Last night, we would have been able to fill 1.3 million tanks because the weather changed overnight. We are moving from a nominated, virtual approach, with thanks to the retailers I mentioned earlier, to an automated technical solution which is essentially a battery bank made up of 3 kW boilers right across the country, of which we have many.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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We will let you get an answer first.

Mr. John Mullins:

I will ask Mr. Lee to take that question.

Mr. Cathal Lee:

The Deputy asks a great question. The solution to this was posed by one of Ms McDonnell's colleagues in Clúid who asked, in view of the fact that the association was upgrading its entire housing stock over the next decade, what could be done for every resident as this was being done. The installation process on the immersion switch, for example, takes an hour. It is a very simple process that would be managed by Clúid or the relevant housing association. It is a straightforward process involving a registered installer. The key thing in terms of information is that the device communicates with Eirgrid and vice versa. That is the key functionality. As Mr. Mullins mentioned, when the curtailment signal kicked in at around 3 o'clock this morning, the tanks of residents in 18 counties across Ireland were heated up while they slept. It is a completely automated system. This morning they would have seen that their tank was full and they got a text message to confirm that. The key point is that the information flows between the retailer and the resident and EnergyCloud merely enables that process to take place. At the end of every month the participating retailers which are Prepay Power, Bord Gais Energy and SSE Airtricity at the moment, put the credit back on the resident's bill or on the prepayment meter, as applicable, based on the usage for those nights.

Mr. John Mullins:

That is it. It is very straightforward.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir. This is really fascinating stuff.

I will be as efficient as possible. I have three questions for EnergyCloud and one for Irish Rural Link. First, I had heard a little about what EnergyCloud does in advance of this meeting and from reading about it. It is really impressive and quite ingenious and creative and the scale of the increase, the fact the first homes were only connected in 2021 and that EnergyCloud Ireland is already at 70,000 homes, is quite remarkable. It is a really rapid growth in the roll-out so I congratulate it. It is an excellent use of the energy that is there.

In terms of the potential beneficiaries, I appreciate Clúid and its housing stock is a significant part of that, but how are potential beneficiaries identified? Are they primarily with local authorities or with approved housing bodies? This is difficult to achieve but I am conscious of the fact that a lot of the discussions we have had over the last couple of sessions is how some of the people most at risk of energy poverty are those in low-quality private rented accommodation. They are probably a bit harder to reach. Maybe EnergyCloud has some of them within its envelope; I do not know. Certainly, a lot of our discussions in recent weeks have focused on that. A lot of them are in poor quality homes that would have been built 50 or 60 years ago that are more difficult to heat and obviously, they cannot access some of the retrofit programmes unless they have an obliging landlord.

I am not an electrician or an engineer so I do not necessarily understand the ins and outs of this. As I understand it, the signal goes out, the people who are beneficiaries or customers - I am not sure what language EnergyCloud uses - are notified and then they know they have free energy they can use; hot water in particular. Is EnergyCloud able to get a sense of what the level of response to that is? How much of that additional energy that is surplus is then taken up by the people who are beneficiaries of EnergyCloud?

Finally, from EnergyCloud's point of view, it occurs to me that in the longer run, wind energy is an area in which there will only be growth. There are people in Cork, and Mr. Lee will be familiar with this, who think of the potential of floating offshore to Cork and I am sure there are similar thoughts in Shannon and Limerick that it can be what the pharmaceutical industry was 30 or 40 years ago. There will only be growth in floating offshore but from a departmental point of view, a surplus in unused energy is not necessarily always a good thing. There obviously will be the desire to export surplus energy as time goes on. Perhaps there might be but will there always be an adequate surplus that can be redirected? Will there always be that spare capacity in the system or is there the possibility that as we look to France, Britain and other places we are supporting, the big picture will affect in a detrimental way what EnergyCloud is trying to do with the surplus? There may be two competing interests there but perhaps not.

I thank Ms Lennon and Mr. Boland from Irish Rural Link. We talked about some of the poor-quality homes in privately rented accommodation. A lot of that happens in rural areas as well. Certainly in my office, while my constituency is primarily urban, I increasingly see people who cannot get housing assistance payment, HAP, properties in the city move further and further out to rent privately in rural areas. The other thing that occurs to me from a rural point of view is that understandably, local authorities like economies of scale so when they are planning a retrofitting programme of local authority housing they like to do a whole estate or a flat complex. There are many villages or rural areas where there are four local authority houses in a street of 12 houses, or where there are one or two local authority houses. In the past, following on from the labourers' cottages of old, county councils would have built five or six houses in a village. They are probably low enough down on the pecking order when a local authority applies for retrofitting funding. Is that an experience Irish Rural Link is having? Is any retrofitting happening or if there is are - as I perceive they might be - local authority tenants in rural areas at the bottom of the pecking order?

Mr. John Mullins:

I thank the Deputy for his commentary on the solution. I also agree that there are people who are not part of a housing association and in poor private rental accommodation who certainly be a target. For EnergyCloud to actually create scale the scale is with organisations such as Clúid Housing, Tuath Housing, Cork City Council, Cork County Council and Fingal County Council, etc. That is where we get the opportunity to access a whole group of customers who have the opportunity to opt into the scheme. It is important to say, Sharon does not have to be awake at 3 o'clock in the morning to determine if the wind is blowing. Once someone opts in, it is automatic. They get their tank and he or she wakes up in the morning with a full tank of hot water that did not cost them anything. It is really important we talk to that.

I will take the Deputy's third point and Ms McDonnell might come back on the second. On the issue of wind energy anybody looking at this - and I look at this clearly from being a participant in Irish renewable energy for many years - the reality is that we are heading towards a potential curtailment number of 15%. If we stack on that, offshore winding coming on off the Cork coast, the east coast or the west coast, that will be significantly higher unless we have a number of solutions. One, we need more interconnection. Clearly, the interconnector to France is a very good addition. A new interconnection to Wales is a very good addition. We need more battery storage to the point to create grid stability. In addition to that, solutions such as this will play their part to add to grid stabilisation because, as I said to Deputy Ó Cathasaigh and we both agreed, this is in essence an aggregated battery storage unit made up of water tanks. The problem will be exacerbated over the next decade and that means the opportunity is much higher. I hope we can get to the singular rental situation but the opportunity in terms of creating a big stack is to do to organisations such as Ms McDonnell does. Will Ms McDonnell take the second point?

Ms Laura McDonnell:

Just to add, with regard to the level of response we have in terms of the 152 households, once they have signed up and are active users, it automatically happens. It gets turned on during the night. We have ongoing engagement with users and some of the feedback they gave us was they got the text message in the morning or were notified. The feedback was that if we could let them know in advance, at least they could plan accordingly. That has been incorporated into the system now. The text goes out the night before that it will be windy so that the residents can then turn off their immersions knowing that it will switch itself on during the night with the wind. They are actively using it and are delighted with the methodology of the text so they know.

Mr. John Mullins:

I have just one final point. Some 73% of all curtailment of renewable energy happens between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m.. That clearly is much higher in the months of October, November, December, January and February when we have higher wind speeds. We do have curtailment during the day as well but it is of a lower order. Therefore, for the other 16 hours there is a remaining 27% of curtailment. Curtailment can happen at any time of the day but it is most prevalent at night when there is low load in terms of demand and high generation levels with respect to wind when it is windy.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Can I just make one point as it occurs to me?

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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There are higher wind speeds of course.

Mr. John Mullins:

Higher wind speeds, exactly.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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One thing that does occur to me, and maybe this is for the longer run because I am sure there are an awful lot of other potential beneficiaries from a housing point of view, is that DEIS schools are another category of people who serve people with disadvantages . Schools are under very severe financial pressure at the minute. Capitation does not come anywhere meeting the costs they have. That is probably for the longer run and I know EnergyCloud's focus is on housing.

Mr. John Mullins:

It is a very good point and we will absolutely take that away and put that into the mix.

Ms Louise Lennon:

I thank the Deputy for his question. As he said, if there were only one or two local authority houses then it would be lower down the pecking order. Also, Irish Rural Link finds that with older local authority stock, a lot of people had the opportunity to buy out their homes. If a person has bought his or her local authority house then he or she is not included in any retrofitting programmes. They have to go their own way. That adds cost if they are not entitled to fuel allowance. They are not entitled to the fully-funded energy scheme. SEAI figures show there are lower levels of retrofitting in many of the more rural counties.

Many of the local authority houses within that are still not ramping up the programme at the scale that they should be, especially if it is available. The lack of tradespeople and contractors is a big issue too.

Mr. Seamus Boland:

What Ms Lennon is saying is quite right. Once one moves out of the local authority, or the towns and villages, there is a vast amount of rural housing that does not fit into those categories, and one will find that nothing is happening at all unless people have money. Often, the advice is not exactly coherent. Many single dwellings, some of which, as I said, are older stock, really need to have a lot of money spent. As we found out at those workshops, people need to ask questions of experts there and then, not to answer questions on the Internet.

Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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I am going to focus on talking to Mr. Boland and Irish Rural Link. I think Senator Wall has spoken enough to EnergyCloud Ireland. They are two good organisations. It is great to have them at the committee. I was wondering about a couple of things. In Clare, we seem to have many community workshops happening to inform the public. Active age groups and many individuals in rural areas have been engaged with. I ran some of the workshops myself but we also have Clare Local Development Company, which has been giving workshops to the community to inform people, and Clare Community Energy Agency and community development workers all doing stuff to educate people about options for retrofitting, solar, photovoltaic and so on. Is there a lack of consistency with other local authorities and local development communities meaning that we are not seeing the same level in other counties?

On the issue of tradesmen, Mr. Boland is absolutely right. I have been meeting SOLAS. I am getting the CEO of SOLAS and the head of apprenticeships to come into Leinster House to do a presentation in the audiovisual room. I will be inviting all TDs and Senators to come in to listen and see what is happening. I think there are a few things we need to do better. We do not have enough recognition of prior learning, which makes it difficult for older people who are brilliant and have 30 or 40 years of experience in trades under their belt when they take on apprenticeships. We do not have any recognised prior learning for someone who has been a civil engineer for years. He has to go back to start at square one, like a 15-year-old who does not have a junior certificate, to become a carpenter. That is also an issue.

We are trying to build many houses and retrofit the significant housing stock. It has to be said that many houses were badly built. The reason there were those statistics about how many houses in rural Ireland are not fit for purpose is that we built so many houses badly in the past. It is not because the retrofit programme is not working. It is just that the retrofit programme is in huge demand because it is working. Anybody who gets it is really happy with it. The 80% grant for insulation in the attics and pumping the walls has become very successful because it is a low-cost measure that has worked for many people.

I have also been working on this issue that we have in rural areas where there are stone houses. They are not designed to be retrofitted in the same way that block houses are. Something will hopefully be launched in the next few months relating to traditional crafts such as lime plastering. How does one insulate and retrofit old stone cottages? Much work has been done on that. That will help people. I have had old people come to me who live in stone cottages and have been told they cannot be retrofitted, which is not good enough. I am with Mr. Boland on that. It is good to see rural broadband being rolled out. Some good things have been happening.

The windfall tax is higher than we expected. That will go straight into fuel allowance, which we have increased a few times in the last couple of years too, which is good. It is worrying to hear about the number of people who are still relying on open fires. That is a significant health issue for them personally. That is tricky because people with oil burners can change to air to water systems much more easily than someone who just has an open fire. Those will become numbered, I think. The new green loan that is coming out at the end of March will be a game-changer too because it will make retrofitting affordable for people.

It is good that social housing stock is being retrofitted for free. In Clare, the local authority is doing clusters of social housing. It did a whole housing estate in Shannon, for instance, and another in Ennis, which was done as a cluster project. I am not sure what happens in other counties. It sounded like Deputy Ó Laoghaire was suggesting they would only do one or two. For me, the thing is consistency. We do not seem to have consistency in local authorities, no matter how the fund is coming down at a national level. It seems to be very hit and miss depending on which council one happens to live in. Maybe, as TDs and Senators, we could look at a standard expectation or target from each local authority so that we might have a uniform, constant, good quality implementation of funding for retrofitting and many other things too.

Rural Link's bus transport has been going well. I would like to hear a bit about that from Mr. Boland. I see the percentages are in there. We have a fivefold or sixfold improvement in Clare, for example. There are a few issues with bus stops and shelters.

Overall, the retrofit programme was not in existence three and a half years ago. The fact that it is in huge demand which we cannot keep up with is telling of how good the programme is, because the waiting lists are long. There was no retrofit programme three and a half years ago, so at least we have one now, and houses are being retrofitted. I was reared in a really damp house, going into school in a wet uniform. I can relate to the issue of damp houses. It is good to see that we are finally moving away from that and making better efforts. I thank Mr. Boland for his work. What Rural Link does is really important. It constantly reminds us of the issues which are possibly unique to rural Ireland.

Mr. Seamus Boland:

I thank Senator Garvey. I appreciate her comments. I know she has been a long-time supporter of what we do. I know there is not much time to address it. The Senator raised the issue of community engagement. It is good that in Clare and other areas, there is a certain amount of roll-out of community engagement. What we are talking about is much more than that. We propose strongly that a cohesive, one-stop shop type of roll-out that is the same in Clare, north Offaly, Roscommon, Kildare, and so on, with the same workshop wherever you go. We believe SEAI should be at the head of doing that because it has the experts and, frankly, I do not think it is visible enough. We hold events to get our policies in place. When we hold them, we are continually confronted with a lack of expertise and a lack of knowledge. It is a bit like when people seek advice about whether or not to buy an electric car when living in rural Ireland. They will get as many answers for it as they will against it.

The problem for householders is that they have a house that might have been built in the 1940s, with many things wrong with it which will cost €80,000 to address. What is the best solution? I do not want an either-or solution. We need the experts there on the night, delivering the same knowledge. I would argue that any workshop that does not have the SEAI at it is, I am afraid, slightly inadequate, because people are not getting the full information. They need the experts to be there. We held a community engagement programme on septic tanks, for example, a few years ago, in 2014 and 2015. We brought experts to the table. There was no messing about which septic tank people needed or did not need in a rural area, because it was the same advice. We want workshops to be much more organised and structured, with the experts there, in every single county. It is not necessarily the responsibility of the local authorities.

If those local authorities take responsibility, they should at least do the same in County Roscommon as they do in counties Offaly, Westmeath, Kerry, etc.

Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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I will cut off Mr. Boland. We have often had workshops by the SEAI, but they seem to be very aloof and talking about a whole community thing. They are not going into the practicalities. I have found it more useful to bring in tradesmen, solar panel fitters and people who have practical skills on the ground, who are able to tell people exactly what is involved and happening, if they want to go down the retrofitting road. We have funded climate officers and energy officers in every single county council in Ireland. It is time for people to start asking them to do their job and help out with this missing education piece. I do not think it will be all down to the SEAI. It has regional community officers but, as was said, it needs to happen in every county. Now that we are funding full-time climate officers and climate teams, including energy officers and community climate officers, we should put our expectancy on them to make this happen. Mr. Boland is absolutely right. We have funded the staff for local authorities to now do this.

Mr. Seamus Boland:

When 30 or 100 people turn up at some of these events, they are coming from different housing situations. They are asking very simple, straightforward and, sometimes, technical questions. They are asking questions on accessing grants, finance and tradespeople who are available or, in some cases, not. Most of the time, they want straight answers. We have found that some of these events do not have all the answers. That is why I go back to the point about an orchestrated, structured, community presentation, with the right experts, should be de facto in determining. That should be the same in every single county. The SEAI has been given the remit to deliver the one-stop shop. This is not a criticism of the SEAI but it has been given that remit by the Government, and it is important the SEAI is there at every stage.

On housing, housing types, one-off housing and all of that, and many houses have been built in rural Ireland, it must be remembered, as I think the leader of the Green Party said, that Ireland is still 40% rural. Many of those houses are one-off and more are being built. We might want it to be different but those are the facts of the matter. That means we have to come up with bespoke solutions to deal with those one-off houses because, frankly, they are in trouble in being not fit for purpose and costing householders a lot of money. Sadly, the more rural the area, the more likely it is that the population is older and so the money is not there. Most of those houses will be found in that 100,000 figure I offered the committee. We have neglected that. The committee should consider a recommendation to pinpoint those households and even to come up with a different package.

The Senator's final point related to transport. We are very proud of Local Link. We do not run it directly but we very much advocate for it. In fact, it came from an Irish Rural Link idea in the nineties. I will not mention the Minister who thought it might not work and that there was no need for it. We had 40 buses outside Leinster House in 2002 to nail home the point that Local Link, which it is now called, would work. We were proved right. There will always be issues with bus stops. It is an improving service. It is massively changing the lives of people in local areas. In fairness to this and previous Governments, they are making more money available, and I appreciate the work they have done to make Local Link what it is. It has a little bit to go, but it is a much more comprehensive service than it was even five years ago. I thank the Government for that.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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I thank everyone who has come in. This is the first time I have grappled with the concept behind EnergyCloud. I have heard of it, but was not too aware of how it operates. To clarify, when the wind picks up this excess wind energy, that can be siphoned off to people who are linked into EnergyCloud. People can switch off their immersions and get free electricity to heat their immersions. It was then said that at that point people will also gain on that for other chores, including the electricity used for hoovering, washing clothes, cooking and all those type of things. Is that it? Is electricity free at that point for those chores? It was said that was what it meant for people, such as Obi Okasi, for showering or for other chores and cleaning. However, I do not find that practical for people with a young family, who are going to work and doing all these type of things, and are told that they should do all their chores and cleaning at a particular point in time. From the point of view of family life, it is a hard thing to do that. Will the representatives expand on that a little to clarify it?

Mr. Mullins said that the batteries were 300 MW. He said his company provided the batteries. Will he clarify that?

I thank Mr. Boland. I know he is coming from the public banking campaign. As was highlighted in the Irish Rural Link report, the key is fairness and equity. Many people on low incomes are paying their carbon tax but are not seeing the benefit of it. They are then seeing other people who can afford it getting retrofitting done on the back of that carbon tax. There has to be fairness and, as Mr. Boland said, it has to be targeted at those 400,000 homes that are not fit for purpose and the 100,000 homes that are absolutely not fit for purpose. It is about how it is done. The committee should certainly look at some specific separate funding, or a certain type of funding, which would link in with those houses. For a 65-year-old to invest in retrofitting in his or her home, if he or she gets a grant of €30,000, it is a lot of money to take on and pay back at that age. It has to be looked at very seriously to see how that can be done.

I come back to the point about the 36 contractors available for the fully funded warmer home grant schemes. I am of the opinion we should have more of an umbrella public retrofitting scheme and, underneath that, all the different contractors could be pulled in. People could even be directly employed in a State company or whatever to be able to direct all this because it is very piecemeal. Retrofitting is one of the key areas where, if people in Ireland saw it being done effectively, they would know that the Government, or whoever is in charge of implementing this, is serious about our climate. People would be very convinced about playing a role in it. That is definitely where it comes from.

Those were the main points I wanted to come in on. The credit unions can play a more positive role in this through being able to access money from the European Investment Bank. That is another area the committee will have to delve into a lot more and recommend highly.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I will ask EnergyCloud to come in on the logistics and explain how they operate.

Ms Laura McDonnell:

I apologise for the lack of clarity with regard to the chores. It is a free hot water tank. It is utilising the water so the chores people are able to do, for example, managing to clean the fridge before getting ready to work. It is utilising water in that hot water tank so it is scheduling washing the kitchen floor, for instance.

Again, they will be looking at their bill and asking "what can I use this month?" and certain chores might be left until they have that free water tank and they use that water as much as they can during the days they have it for free.

Mr. John Mullins:

Regarding the question about the battery equivalent, when someone switches on his or her immersion, it is generally a 3 kW load when he or she switches on his or her own. If 100,000 homes opt in to this scheme, and we already have 75,000 registered to join, you add the equivalent instantaneously when the curtailment signal goes out of 300 MW of extra demand on the system, which means you keep 300 MW of zero equivalent renewable energy less wastage on the grid. This is why we can do the things we are doing whereby that wastage is converted into a fruitful exercise, which is to warm water to boiling point or equivalent and then provide stability on the grid by instantly bringing 300 MW and not having to take off wind farms. That is the concept. The price of a 300 MW battery based on my own guesstimates would be about €150 million to build and you could not do that in one location. You would have to do it over three or four separate locations.

Ms Louise Lennon:

Regarding Deputy Collins's point about reaching the households with people aged over 65 and even those households with people who may be in their 70s or 80s and living on their own or as a couple-----

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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On a low income.

Ms Louise Lennon:

On a low income. Even if they are entitled to the fully funded schemes such as the warmer homes scheme, how do we convince them to take part in the programme when they are at that stage of their lives? It involves a lot of upheaval for them. The work can take up to two years from application to when the work is fully completed. It is about trying to reach those households as well that could still be burning fossil fuels and relying on oil or living in poorly insulated homes. They are probably looking at their age and whether it is worth all the inconvenience and disruption it can cause so engaging with those people is important. The community outreach programme is one of those ways. As Mr. Boland said earlier, those are the households we worked with during the Eircode and digital switchover.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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That motivation to move is a particular problem. Ms Lennon would know at first hand in Kilmacormack, and I know at first hand in Ardkeenan, the difficulty of getting them to take that step further. It is one thing to try to get people to make this decision even when the grants are there and even the SEAI has highlighted this as being a problem.

Mr. Seamus Boland:

To finish off the point about engagement, the engagement programme we had involved volunteers known to the person being available to help and ease people through the change that is needed because it is change that is the main demand and it involves higher levels of anxiety so you are asking a great deal. What you are really looking for is for them to be able to trust the advice they are getting in the local community. That was the strength of our community engagement scheme.

Deputy Collins spoke about the carbon tax. Irish Rural Link is on record as understanding why the carbon tax exists but not understanding why rural areas do not get the benefits of it. A tax is supposed to be an either-or. In other words, I can buy my plastic bag in the shop and pay the tax - that is the choice I make - or I can decide not to but in rural Ireland, you do not have a choice. When the increase in tax happens, you pay it because you have to get your children to school or light your home if it is heating oil. It does not matter. You have to pay the tax. We are still not convinced that building around that tax or "ring-fencing it" as the phrase goes has been adequate and we do not really see where the benefits of ring-fencing that tax have yet occurred. We would at least ask for that. We have been very critical of a tax that simply puts more pressure on lower-income households.

Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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The witnesses from EnergyCloud mentioned Fingal County Council - I am being a bit parochial here - in connection with where the areas in Fingal are and what the plans for future development are. We know Church Fields in Mulhuddart is a new development with 300 social, affordable and cost-rental homes. Would something like that be included with Fingal?

Mr. Cathal Lee:

That is a great question. Last June was a landmark moment for Fingal County Council and EnergyCloud. It was the first local authority to commence a project. To date, it has been focused on existing homes, for example, the one-hour retrofit. Mr. Mullins referenced getting homes EnergyCloud-ready in his opening statement. From a simple point of view, you can spec this in for all new homes so that you do not have to do a one-hour retrofit. Regarding the national retrofit programme, which was referenced in the submission, and the existing new build programmes - even the ones exclusively funded by the State through the local authorities or approved housing bodies - if you did nothing else but suggest that those homes are EnergyCloud-enabled, that would mean that there would be no need for a knock on the door two years down the road for an electrician to do a one-hour retrofit. You just spec it in as standard. The key thing there is that it is using the existing infrastructure and tradespeople. There is an acute shortage of tradespeople so if you can be efficient in terms of doing this at new build phase or retrofit stage, it can be hugely useful.

One of the programmes that is about to start with EnergyCloud and a small approved housing body involves doing the installations of part of the approved housing body's ongoing maintenance across the small number of homes it has. Different local authorities will do it differently based on their own programmes but the Deputy's suggestion that it be specced in at the start is probably where legislators and influencers across the entire value chain should be focusing because that is the one that can have greatest medium-term impact with regard to Deputy Ó Cathasaigh's earlier point rather than having to knock on the door a second time with regard to a house.

Mr. John Mullins:

I remember growing up in the 1970s on a council estate in Cork city. My mother always asked me whether the immersion had been turned off. The reality is that you have the ability if these are put in place to check whether the immersion has been left on or not and if you have a smartphone, you can switch if off. There is an additional advantage in terms of peace of mind if somebody in the house has switched on the immersion and the mother, father or the bill payer does not know about it. In addition, you do not want immersions on manually when you do not need to have them on, which clearly creates another carbon value we do not need. There is another use of these devices over and above the opt-in to the actual hot water tank for nothing so it is really important to point that out.

Mr. Cathal Lee:

To be completely parochial for the Deputy, it was in the Fingal local authority area that the very first EnergyCloud installation took place. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, was within his 5 km or 3 km radius - it happened during Covid. I think he was nearly able to walk there. I am not saying exactly where it was, but he was well able to walk to the installation in 2021. The point is that this has come a long way. As local authorities and approved housing bodies look at their plans, they should be considering how they do their next three, five or ten years and put EnergyCloud at the heart of that.

Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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Go raibh maith agat.

Mark Wall (Labour)
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I welcome our guests. Mr. Mullins started off by talking about 550,000 households in energy poverty. The figure our guests gave is that 75,000 now have EnergyCloud to help them with that. How long would it take to reach in the region of 550,000, particularly in light of the organisation's current outlays, the constraints in relation to personnel, etc.? If it is 75,000 since 2021, how quickly could we get to 550,000 in order to help everybody? It is an absolutely brilliant scheme, as other speakers have said. The emphasis has been on housing, but I am dealing a lot with sports clubs at the moment and the cost of energy for them, environmental issues arising and so on. I am hoping EnergyCloud is looking at something like that because, obviously, hot water, showering, etc., are very important to sports clubs.

An issue that has been raised by a couple of contributors is education. This is something I have problems with in the context of filling in forms and other basic necessities. It is about simplifying the whole thing. Mr. Mullins is right about people leaving their immersion heaters on. We all came across that as we grew up. Is that as simple as it can be for everybody in order to ensure maximum benefit for everybody? That an education aspect is included with this is paramount to its success, and it already has been a success.

On Cluíd Housing and to be parochial as well, I have a question about turnkey sites where the body is taking over from a builder. Will the people moving in there see the benefit from EnergyCloud before they move in or will it be retrofitted after they arrive? In my home town of Athy, there is a Cluíd Housing scheme just about ready to go. Perhaps I could get an answer on that and on turnkey sites.

I thank Mr. Boland for all the work he and his organisation do. I am dealing with the just transition. In that context, there is a retrofit programme whereby eight counties benefited to the tune of €20 million. Some 120 units in my county benefited, but that is only a drop in the ocean in the context of what needs to be done in this regard for those who live in just transition areas. Has Mr. Boland come across that? I am going to use the old chestnut of the grant for upgrading windows and doors. We have spoken about those aged over 66, but I come across daily those who are aged under 66, especially in rural areas, whose windows are 30 or 40 years old. We still cannot give them the grant to ensure that they can have some sort of comfort. Mr. Boland spoke about a specific grant for rural areas. I would totally support that because the challenges that face many rural dwellers, especially in one-off houses, is they are very hard to get to and there are no synergies stemming from the amount that can be done together. We need to look at this differently from a different point of view and look at retrofitting of, say, one-off houses or rural house that we need to improve and not leave them to sit alone as many have over many years.

Ms Laura McDonnell:

I will take the education piece. As part of the installation, people will be shown how the system works, including the unit with the hot water tank and also with the phone and what the message will be as well. How it works will be explained. We obviously have fantastic partners in Eirgrid, the ESB, Bord Gáis, PrepayPower and SSE Airtricity. For example, with PrepayPower, it will be explained that it will be the rebate in terms of how that will work on their bill. As it is being installed, we bring the residents up to speed on how it will work for them.

On Cluíd's schemes, the way we are managing it is that the focus is on older properties, as discussed earlier, based on where the greatest need is. That is they way we are prioritising it because the newer homes have a higher spec when it comes to energy efficiency. We are looking at older homes and where assistance with energy poverty is most needed.

Mr. John Mullins:

I thank Senator Wall for his questions. We have a job of work to get up to that 75,000 in the first instance. Fortunately, we are being assisted by significant donations. I mentioned the SSE Airtricity donation, and we have a number of other potentially significant donations coming into the charity. The focus here is about establishing an infrastructure to allow us to serve the 75,000. I hope we can get to a position whereby we can reach 550,000 homes across the country and more. As I said, last night we could have filled 1.3 million tanks, as opposed 550,000, so there is a real opportunity to have an ambition to not set a cap or a ceiling, effectively, on the number of water tanks we are going to access.

Senator Wall's point about the sports clubs is very apt in the same way as that made by Deputy Ó Laoghaire regarding DEIS schools. I am a member of a GAA club in rural Cork. We are always complaining about the price of hot water, which is one of our biggest expenses in the club. We will certainly take that on board, but we need to do this in a stacked order of priority. First, we have to deal with the people who are in real fuel poverty and those who are recognised within social housing. Then we can layer on, maybe in parallel, DEIS schools and sports clubs. We are very interested in other suggestions of facilities, be they community halls, particular units, nursing homes or whatever, that can be added over time. Those could be in urban, semi-urban or rural areas. It is about building up the stack.

It is really important we get the support of members of both Houses and that we do not face any regulatory impediments into the future that could stymie the implementation of this at scale. We are asking all the members here to be ambassadors for EnergyCloud. That is a critical message, and I hope they have a better understanding of what this is about and the real potential it has to put money back into people's pockets and give them peace of mind with respect to their electricity bills going forward.

Mr. Seamus Boland:

I thank Senator Ward. The word "transition" is key, and it has been applied in the midlands in respect of a range of programmes. We would again look at an evaluation of how that is working. It is a subject for another debate, but we have major questions around whether we really mean transition and what do we mean by transition, because we do not know if it is reaching all the rural households.

To be clear, we must not forget one-off houses. There are thousands and thousands of such houses. We believe there are solutions. We are still awaiting the roll-out of the farm sheds thing, which basically involves putting solar panels on farm sheds. We would solve a great deal of the heating and domestic heating, not to mention power and electricity, of farms if we could get that rolled out. We still have not managed to get that out yet. There are solutions for the households in many of the rural areas that we need to start rolling out. We need to treat it as an emergency. We did so and have been praised worldwide that when we have to deal with an emergency, we deal with it. There is an emergency in rural areas, especially around one-off houses. That emergency needs to be dealt with. There are solutions in the context of solar power, even wind power or whatever, but we need to get them into the discussions, into real schemes and programmes and then we need to implement them. We seem to be coming up with ideas, stop-starting and then not doing them or doing them very locally and not doing them somewhere else, doing different schemes in different counties and all of that. It is about a little bit more cohesion and co-ordination.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Mr. Mullins wanted to come in there.

Mr. John Mullins:

Yes. I want to support what Mr. Boland is saying. It is from my own experience. I have been trying to get Ireland to understand that solar PV in farms, for example, is something that can be readily supported by Government.

Amarenco, which is my company, operates in France. We have built a number of greenhouses that are let to horticulturists for €1 a year, and we have built solar PV barns - new sheds, in effect - for farmers. The French Government has supported those structures, as well as the solar PV. It has given specific tariffs for those greenhouses and barns or new or retrofitted sheds. There are countries already doing this and supporting agriculture. These specific tariffs are being offered in rural France and Germany, for example. I support the Senator in what he is saying. It is something Ireland should consider. We should learn from other European countries in that context.

Mr. Seamus Boland:

We support Senator Wall's proposal relating to under-60s getting grants in certain situations. Again, the way in which some of these grants are implemented is far too picky. It should be look at on the basis of income, rather than age.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I congratulate EnergyCloud. This is an innovative initiative. From the first time I heard about it, I was taken with it. I congratulate Clúid Housing on its involvement. Why does EnergyCloud seem to be concentrating on houses delivered through schemes, whether they are run by local authorities or Clúid? There are many people in houses they own who are poor, to put it that way. There is an easy way of measuring that. The fuel allowance is given on a household basis, taking into account all household income, and, therefore, anybody getting fuel allowance is under a certain household income threshold.

I refer to hot water held in an immersion tank. No matter how bad the house is otherwise, thermally or any other way, hot water is a great boon for showering, washing, washing machines and everything else for which one uses water. Once it is a good hot water tank, it does not really affect the leakage of heat in the context of how bad the house is. What are the constraints on expanding this scheme rapidly?

I have a kind of counterpoint. For the sake of argument, let us suppose EnergyCloud manages to use all this surplus energy and heat a large number of tanks. That will deprive private commercial companies of the revenue they would have got if they had heated the tanks on a commercial basis. Is there a risk that at a certain stage of growth, there will be kick-back from the commercial companies to the effect that it was fine when it was small, but it is getting too big and that when 550,000 households are, in effect, getting a heap of preheated water during the year that we could have sold to them, this is an interference in the private market, contrary to EU rules and all sorts of mad things. I would not like to see that happening, but I am wondering is there a risk there, particularly as two State companies are involved. How can our guests guard against that or is there anything we can do to guard against it?

With regard to Irish Rural Link, the majority of houses in rural Ireland are owned. Some of them are local authority one-off houses that were built and purchased. Many of them are intergenerational houses of poor quality. For the over-65s, there is the housing aid for older people, HAOP, scheme, but the limit on that scheme is €8,000. It is not a high-technology job to realise that single-glazed windows are not much use. You do not need a BER expert to tell the householder to put in triple-glazed windows instead. The county council is quite capable of making sure that is dealt addressed. If a house has old timber doors that let in a draft underneath, it does not take a genius to put in a sealed door. There is no need for many of the complications that we seem to make out of everything nowadays. If a house has a very poor and leaking roof, or any of the other faults that appear in houses, such as cracks and everything else, that should be addressed. We seem to have endless money for retrofitting, which is great. I am glad there is no financial constraint in that regard, but the same entity, namely, the Government, has an absolute financial constraint when it comes to addressing the very simple and basic jobs that are needed by the houses of people who are in the greatest energy poverty of all. I am referring to single-glazed windows, doors that let in drafts and so on. Have the witnesses made a case for the HAOP grant to be the first port of call for works on these very poor houses just to get them into structural order so that they could then proceed to phase 2 and have the bigger things done? There would be many advantages to that. One such advantage is that the waiting list for the HAOP is far shorter than those for the retrofit or warmer homes schemes. It takes two years for a person to come out and do the survey under the warmer homes scheme. The householders might have taken 40 years to make up their mind up to ask but they want it done tomorrow. That is just the way people are. When they learn it will take two years for somebody to come out and look at it, that is a difficult ask. It puts them off getting the work done. They say they will fill in the form next week, but next week never comes.

Another advantage is that the HAOP suits the small local builders. They are already on the council list and they are dying for work. They are out there and they get it done. That will greatly improve these houses. In addition, it is easier to work it that way, as a parallel operation, than it s to get the warmer homes scheme application in. It would address the basic thermal efficiency of the houses. In my house, if the door between the house and the garage was left open, you could feel the wind coming in. When we put a spring on the door, that sorted that issue. The point is that if the wind is blowing into a house, there is no way of heating it. The first thing is to do those basic improvements. Has any thought been given to that?

A problem I come up against all the time relates to people who inherited houses. Some of them are single people who lived with their parents all their life in the old house. Some of those old houses might be 100 years old and have problems when it comes to retrofitting because they are stone houses or whatever and in very poor condition. The parents die and the person who inherits the house is in his or her 50s or whatever. There is no grant other than the retrofit grant or the warmer homes scheme available to such people. These houses need a lot more than the warmer homes scheme, and a lot more quickly. Have the witnesses been making a case that we should not have age discrimination in reverse? As a person who is at the upper end of the age profile, I often feel there is a myth that everybody under 65 has an income and is well off, while everybody over 65 is not. As a person who is on a TD's salary, I know that is not true. There are mixes of people in all age groups. Poverty does not discriminate on age grounds. Generally speaking, who is more likely to use a lot of hot water - the people who are very poor and have four kids who take showers every few hours, or the older person in reasonably good health living alone? We need to be fair to those under 66, who sometimes get left out of the narrative.

I agree with the point made in respect of credit unions. We need them in. We also need them in for the vacant home grant, which is a brilliant grant. The Croí Cónaithe scheme is really getting things done. The credit unions should come in and say they will put up a bridging loan against the grant.

Anything that one does is a risk, but the risk is small where there is property and most people who own property tend to be responsible with it.

Mr. Seamus Boland:

The Deputy outlined the case concerning the €8,000 HAOP grant. We would make the same case even more strongly on the basis that it is straightforward work that does not get too complicated and has the advantage, in addition to the ones the Deputy outlined, of introducing the person to getting something started in terms of transitioning the house. It is simple work that would not cause much anxiety, but the grant is too low and restrictive. We spoke about encouraging people to move into this space and start sorting out their houses. That is a good start and an easy step to take. As the Deputy stated, restricting the grant makes no sense. We will continue to make this case and would argue that the committee should do likewise in its final report. There are many thousands of people who are not doing anything at the moment to transition their houses.

I would argue that under-65s seem to be discriminated against. Age is not the way to look at this. Rather, income is. We need to consider income as a determining factor. We have argued strongly for a proper package involving a mix of credit union loans, grants and other funding. The most important element that people still want is real, solid advice that they can trust. There is a great deal of advice out there, but read any expert’s column and listen to any radio programme and one will be told, “On the one hand and on the other hand”. That is no use at all to people who are looking for straight answers. If they cannot get straight answers, they need to be able to find someone who can give them. We need properly managed finance packages from trustworthy sources, such as the credit union, we need the grants to be adequate and not restricted in the rather mean-spirited way some of them are, and we need solid, straightforward advice. Even if the person only installs windows, let there be an overall plan for each house that sets out what needs to happen. Even if the person only installs a proper front door, that is a start. At least he or she is doing something. In our estimation, approximately 400,000 houses are only barely thinking about something now that we as a country have decided is an emergency.

Mr. John Mullins:

Ms McDonnell might address the question on stacking up and how it is best to start with schemes to get scale.

Ms Laura McDonnell:

Last year, the Irish Council for Social Housing conducted research into AHBs and how their residents were managing the impact of the cost of living. Of those residents, 37% reported that heating their homes was unaffordable. That is what we are seeing on the ground in Clúid. Fuel poverty is being cited more frequently in tenancy sustainment and arrears cases. We are considering various methods to help our residents reduce their energy bills. This meeting is discussing retrofitting. Clúid has a retrofitting project ongoing. Last year alone, we retrofitted 430 of our homes. EnergyCloud is another method we are using to help our residents reduce their bills.

Deputy Ó Cuív referred to houses with many men, including sons, living in them. It reminded me of how one of our residents mentioned how she had three sons in her house and how EnergyCloud had been a blessing for her, allowing her to manage that. We are considering who among Clúid’s 11,000 homes and 29,000 residents needs it most with a view to prioritising them for roll-out and activation. Anything we can do is very important for our residents. We would be grateful for any support we get in rolling it out further.

Mr. John Mullins:

The Deputy asked about constraints and commercial cannibalisation. Clearly, we are a charity. The donations we get will support the retrofit of immersion controllers, enabling those who are registered with us to have controllers fitted in order that they can avail of the hot tank. This is critical. We are fundraising to that end. I already mentioned SSE Airtricity in that context, but there are a number of others.

Each renewable energy generator project must now provide a community fund. I hope that my company will participate in order that EnergyCloud can be supported from a central point of view in meeting the retrofit requirement.

Another issue we face is automation. We are working on a solution to automate us so that we can scale up. That is critical. Does Mr. Lee wish to discuss this?

Mr. Cathal Lee:

The Deputy referred to families falling out of private rental accommodation or private ownership and having their incomes deemed by the State as falling into the fuel allowance category. In an ideal world, everyone would get to talk to one another, but the simplest way to begin was for EnergyCloud to work with the AHBs and local authorities because those organisations had direct relationships with the residents, which EnergyCloud did not. EnergyCloud is merely an enabler of that partnership.

The Deputy discussed scaling upwards and moving past local authority and AHB stock. Reverting to Mr. Mullins’s point, one would prioritise based on those the State had already determined were either in fuel poverty or at risk of it. This narrowness of focus is something that the committee should be considering in its engagement with the Department. One could then join the smart meter programme, an asset that the State has paid for, to the Department of Social Protection’s existing infrastructure for identifying families. There are many things that can be done in this regard.

I recall a conversation with another Member of the Oireachtas who asked what would happen if all the curtailment disappeared. I looked at the Member genuinely and asked whether the Member had not seen the climate action plan. We are going to triple our renewable energy asset in the next ten years. At the same time, we are changing how we live our lives in terms of heating, the electrification of heat, transport, etc. This is profoundly changing the volume of renewables required and the corresponding volume of waste that will have to be built into the system. That is the exciting bit – to reimagine waste as something. EnergyCloud was inspired by the founders of FoodCloud, who reimagined taking waste from the back of supermarkets, not allowing it to be put into a skip and saying that it should instead go to some good purpose. If you start from the proposition that that is not waste and it can lead to something positive or constructive, you can pursue ideas like those mentioned by Deputy Ó Laoghaire and Senator Wall, where you reimagine existing assets within the community as being large batteries that can receive energy. For example, there is a large concentration of wind farms in Deputy Ó Cuív’s area, but to be able to make the connection between the surplus from those wind farms and his community requires initiatives like EnergyCloud.

Mr. John Mullins:

The Deputy asked about cannibalisation. In reality, FoodCloud has been successful in maintaining retailers’ involvement in the process of providing surplus food to people who need it. In a scenario involving 550,000 customers - we would love to be a bridgehead to all of them - if it cost €1 to heat a tank, we would be talking about approximately €70 million per year.

However, if we look at the current level of wastage, it is well in excess of €250 million. Ironically, many of the suppliers who are involved in this process and those who have not joined us yet are also participants in renewable energy, so it is in their best interests to ensure that they are not switched off and that they actually maintain the rotation of a wind farm or the switch into an inverter of a solar farm.

The idea that we are not going to be able to lower the carbon content of our electricity by actually turning off things rather than turning on things is a travesty. Anybody who has a moral interest in and a deep ambition for getting us to net zero understands that. We met many times before when I was CEO of Bord Gáis. I can tell members that anybody in such a position would be really interested in, first, dealing with the fuel poverty issue and, second, hitting net zero. This solution is one that will assist with that particular aim.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I hear what Mr. Mullins is saying. Obviously, that is where we all want to go. Could the Government build into future wind farm licences a community gain requirement for surplus energy on the basis that it would be a win-win, as Mr. Mullins points out? It would be a case of using something that is there, not switching off the turbine. It would make a contribution, particularly to the host communities, which, as he knows, can be a sensitive issue. It is important that everything is done that can be done to ensure that the host community gets a direct gain, in particular those on lower incomes. We will make a recommendation. Should we make a recommendation on trying to ensure or encourage in some way that there is a community gain and, in so doing, fund obligations to make sure that some of it goes to EnergyCloud?

Mr. John Mullins:

That should absolutely be the case in policy terms. I know from building solar farms in Ireland that there are local gains. They would not gain unless the solar farm was in the middle of the community. There is an opportunity to have an aggregated piece of that overall community fund dedicated. To be fair to SSE Airtricity, that is exactly what it is doing. That €2.5 million donation to the charity is on the basis of its recognition of a community fund. I hope that all the members of Wind Energy Ireland – I also had conversations with board members yesterday in the Irish Solar Energy Association - will engage in this and that there will be meeting of minds between the members of this committee, the Departments involved and also the wind and solar generators out there.

I suppose that when we get to the offshore stuff, we are on a completely different scale. We are talking about tens of millions of euro in community gain. If we take the Celtic interconnector, which is passing through my village in east Cork, that is actually enormously benefiting villages in rural areas right across east Cork. There is no doubt that a portion of that could be used to support DEIS schools or hot water tanks in GAA and soccer clubs, and also clearly at the very core of where we are starting, local authority housing and social housing right across the country.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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We are looking out at the Sceirde Rocks.

Mr. Cathal Lee:

On the broader policy question, if we look at some of the triggers that have transformed how food waste is perceived, the French Government made a decision to effectively make it illegal for retailers to dump food as it was coming close to its expiry date and that changed it for everybody. It meant that the retailers then had to think of their waste as an asset. Organisations like FoodCloud and others were able to say they could work with the retailers on that problem. If the committee wrote to the Government and said it should ask the generators in Ireland to look at all waste as an asset that could be used by someone else, that would be hugely instructive because it would send a signal to the industry that it could be doing a lot more. As Mr. Mullins has said, many of them are already there and they want to do something, but of course it is no harm for committee members, as legislators, to take a lead on that.

Mr. John Mullins:

I will make one final point. The concept of EnergyCloud is not exclusively confined to the Republic of Ireland. EnergyCloud Northern Ireland and EnergyCloud Scotland have been established. We expect that the concept of EnergyCloud could be extended on a much more international basis. We are all separate entities but we all work off the same mission statement. We are all governed separately but that concept and the technical solution has gone into two other jurisdictions. We expect that it will go into many more across Europe in the coming years.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank Mr. Mullins. Before I bring in Senator Murphy, I would like the witnesses to clarify one issue. Is it correct that the technical solution at the moment to do this remotely is not available off the shelf? Is there an opportunity here for the Government, working with the SEAI, to find the solution rather than waiting for a charity to provide it?

Mr. John Mullins:

Any support we can get from any national agency to help us to come up with the automated solution as quickly as possible is going to accelerate the scale up to the first 75,000, and hopefully up to 100,000 and then 550,000. Any support that this committee and legislators can give us in that regard would be very useful.

Mr. Cathal Lee:

The key element to how all the SEAI schemes work, as the Chair knows, is about the measurement of the benefit and validating the benefit. The key thing about the benefit to Ms McDonnell's residents is that it can be tracked in terms of kilowatt-hour usage. The saving of renewable energy and displacing of fossil fuel usage can be measured. If, for example, the committee were to recommend or suggest to the SEAI that it designate an EnergyCloud-type scheme purely for local authorities and approved housing bodies to draw funding from, that would transform overnight the scalability and the roll-out of what we are talking about. Crucially, it would then make that linkage to what others have spoken about so that everybody is involved in the just transition. There is no difficulty in doing that in terms of the schemes that exist.

Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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The enthusiasm of the witnesses for what they do is extraordinary. It is a great story to tell. It was fantastic to listen to Ms McDonnell tell the stories about the residents.

To a degree, the Chair has asked the question I was going to ask, which is what we can do going forward. What ask do the witnesses have of us? I think we have an idea of that in terms of what they have been saying to us today but if there is anything else that they think would be important that we could bring forward it is very important that we would do it.

I also extend a welcome to Ms Lennon and Mr. Boland, whom I know pretty well. They do a lot of good work in rural areas. I will come to them in a moment.

Does EnergyCloud deal with individuals or is it only communities? Can it deal with people on a one-to-one basis? Does it have a presence in every county? Can it look after a scheme in any county if people come to it?

Whatever happens, we all know that we are going to be doing a lot in terms of renewable energy, going forward. I believe we got a lot of things wrong. There was a promise, which I accept came from the Government, that we would have a low-interest loan, but it has not happened. It is good to hear it is going to happen but we have been talking about it for two years. There was a grant for solar panels but it was reduced. In my view, that should not have happened. Some people made the case to me that the cost of the project reduced, but if we look at some of the Nordic countries, they have a massive grant for solar panels of up to 80% or 90%.

Ms Lennon and Mr. Boland are bang on the button. The Chair will know this. When we go into houses in rural areas, the shape they are in is incredibly bad. If there is anything upsetting in this day and age, given that Ireland is a wealthy country, it is to see mould growing on walls inside a house. First, it is very bad for people's health. It is very sad, in particular for older people who have reared their families and the families have gone away. There are other people with lots of money who do not want to invest in their homes. That is fine. We cannot do anything with those. There is really bad housing. Some houses that we go to do not have proper footpaths around them, and the damp is right up to the walls.

What has happened with the retrofitting, and I do not want to take away from the good work that is going on in the Department, is that it has become complicated. This has been said, but I will reiterate it, that the simple thing is to have proper doors, proper windows, and insulated attics and walls, particularly for people who have moved into the later stages of life. Given the pace at which is going now, many of those people will never see it, and that is a fact. I am dealing with cases where it is taking up to three to four years. There is an awful lot to be said for when we had a very straightforward way of putting in doors, windows and insulation. It may have been mentioned by Deputy Ó Cuív that there are lots of small family builders who are no longer involved in house building and who are more than willing to take up this work. They have been experts at doing it for years. We are missing a huge opportunity by not going back and having a look at this. When we talk about the deep retrofitting scheme, and even the simpler scheme, that simpler scheme does not look simple to people who want to make those basic changes to their homes.

To Ms Lennon and Mr. Boland, what is their ask of us today? Do they want us to go back to the Minister and the Government and say we need to go back to a lot of basics? It is upsetting to us all when we see the conditions some people live in. I do not think we in Ireland in 2024 realise the bad housing conditions there are in some parts of the country. It is quite upsetting to me when I look at it. Basically, what do the witnesses think about that? Do we need to go back? Do we need to have another look at this? There is a lot of money around the schemes. There is any amount of money. It is a pity we are just not investing it in a different way, especially for the people who are most in need.

Again, incredible work is being done by both groups and there is a really exciting story there. This is a road we will have to go down, but there are things we are losing out on. As I have said, I do not see why we would reduce the grant on solar panels. I do not see why it is taking so long to involve the credit unions with the low-cost loan. Those things are holding everything back.

Mr. John Mullins:

I thank Senator Murphy for his commentary and his apt question. What we would like to do first is write to the Cathaoirleach of this committee through the clerk and suggest points based on this excellent interaction and engagement we have had today with all members and come back with a number of points that, clearly, we would like to include on our side, but also that we might have an ask on the committee members' side. Clearly, we would like for them to be ambassadors of EnergyCloud Ireland. All their complimentary comments with respect to what we are doing are greatly appreciated, but we would like them also as a committee to make recommendations, if they could, to the relevant Ministers, because it is not one single Minister who will be involved in this. We will come back to the committee to show progress and show the members the numbers. We will also speak to the Cathaoirleach about any regulatory challenges we have. That is something we will come back to the committee about as well.

Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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That is good.

Ms Louise Lennon:

I thank Senator Murphy for his questions. The committee could include in its report that there are schemes that have been devised for rural households that are easy to access. They are simple, straightforward to apply for and implement, do not cause as much disruption as some of the other schemes, and are targeted at the more lower income and older homes. The low-cost loans that are coming on stream, it is hoped by the end of March, should also be targeted.

Deputy Collins mentioned the carbon tax and how those who are better off are benefiting more from the ring-fencing of the carbon tax than lower income households. They are still paying higher rates of carbon tax because they are still dependent on fossil fuels. However, lower income households, those who are living in older homes and homes with lower BERs should be prioritised to access those loans. They should also be targeted so they can access them.

Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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On the issue of solar panels, there are many low- to middle-income people who cannot afford to do this work. I am told that it costs €15,000 to get a real benefit from it. Some neighbours and others have shown me their bills and they have been wiped out.

I wonder if there is a fear, and I think it was Deputy Ó Cuív who brought this up, on the part of the companies that are supplying electricity. They obviously must survive. They are employing people and they have to make profits. Is there any evidence this is being slowed down because of the damage it could cause to existing electricity companies and whatever? Mr. Boland mentioned the roll-out of those panels on farm buildings and houses. That should be a massive priority, but it is not happening in the way it should. Again, the low-cost loan has not been brought into effect there either.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Before Mr. Boland responds to that, all Senator Murphy has to look at is the implementation by the electricity companies here in this country of an EU directive to pay people for the surplus electricity they generate in their own homes via microgeneration. It took more than 12 months for any of the operators to start paying it. To the best of my knowledge, not one of them backdated it to that date. There is therefore a real reluctance and hesitancy on the part of the operators here to actually pay for microgeneration.

Mr. Seamus Boland:

I think both members are on the ball. I remember being in Scotland in 2004 when I was visiting a person I knew from our own area who had bought land. The first thing he did was to set up a wind facility on his land, which he had newly bought. He was getting paid the commercial rates for producing that electricity. Yet, for some reason in this country, we want people to produce the electricity, but we want to take it for nothing and sell it on. The members raise a very good point.

As we said earlier, we are talking about solving problems, certainly for the one-off houses, farmhouses, etc. Solar is a possibility, and it can work reasonably well, but it demands a little bit of work and a lot of investigation and interrogation. This goes back to my point about having strong, solid information that is independently available, because there are a number of companies in this space at the moment. You are trying to make up your mind about which has the better programme. As the Senator said, they are trying to make some money as well. You hope that what you buy is resilient enough to last the pace, that it does not finish up or the company does not finish up. That is a danger.

Again, there is a real opportunity in rural Ireland to let farms harness the energy, distribute it, use it for themselves and sell it on. The sooner we start getting serious about that, the better.

Mr. John Mullins:

As somebody who was told back in 2014 that they were completely mad to think that solar farms would start in Ireland, the reality is that the price of solar has come down so much and will continue to come down such that the payback period for any household in Ireland at the €15,000 rate the Senator mentioned is about seven years. If you can get a quid pro quo financial package between credit unions and the customer, that will help things.

With respect to picking any contractor, whether they are in building, are an electrician, a plumber or a solar PV installer, the best thing to do is talk to people and get references. The beauty of solar PV is that there are no moving parts. It will generally stay on your roof. You do not need to wash it, particularly here in Ireland, although there are issues in other countries, and the reality is that it will stay on your roof and will see most of us out for 25 to 30 years because the degradation rate is only 0.4% per annum. Therefore, you will still be producing electricity after year seven at zero cost. That is an important facet. It will reduce your costs but clearly will improve the marketability of your house, if you are going to sell it, because it is a critical asset.

Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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That is true.

Mr. John Mullins:

I agree with what the Cathaoirleach said. We have had false dawns on microgeneration in Ireland. We did have microgeneration targets and then they were removed. Then, there was a real slowness in actually giving people the opportunity to sell back into the system. Frankly, however, that now exists. I know many people who are producing excess energy out of solar PV panels, whether it is on farmhouses or barns or on domestic houses, and they are benefiting from them. I know people who, in the middle of summertime, are actually owed money by the supplier because they are producing excess power. Therefore, there has been a paradigm shift. There is a revolution and, thankfully, consumers are embarking on that journey. However, I agree that it is difficult for the low- to middle-income earner to raise the money at the outset. We do need more financial supports in that regard. Clearly, credit unions are at the core of that.

Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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Absolutely.

Mr. John Mullins:

In my own view, banks could do a bit more as well.

Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail)
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They sure could.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I have a couple of questions, but before I come to those, I welcome Emma Lynch from Clarin College in Athenry who is in the Houses of the Oireachtas this week on transition year work experience. She is very welcome in experiencing the engagement here at the committee today.

To correct the record with regard to something earlier, there was a retrofit and a deep retrofit programme here prior to three and a half years ago. We had a number of pilot retrofits in which Mr. Boland was involved. We announced the capital allocation in January of 2018 to deep retrofit 45,000 homes per year. Sadly, there was a delay in the implementation of that because of Covid-19, but the funding and commitment has been there for a considerable time.

I will turn to a few questions, first of all to EnergyCloud, with regard to the evidence that was given regarding the curtailment and the financial impact of that. Based on the different remuneration schemes that are in place for renewable energy, the reality is that some of the public service obligation, PSO, is being used to pay for some of that curtailed electricity, particularly on the earlier projects. Have we any idea of how much money people are paying through the PSO for curtailed electricity? I know it is not a simple question, but the witnesses might give us some indication in that regard.

On the curtailment, Mr. Mullins made the point that we are looking at 15% of all our renewable electricity being curtailed in the not-too-distant future. The difficulty is that this is not universal across the country. If we go to the periphery, that is, the west coast and especially the north west of Ireland, a substantial proportion of that electricity is being curtailed. It would be nice to see that electricity being utilised locally. We have all dealt with it, including Senator Murphy and myself, in terms of concerns by local communities around wind farms being constructed in their community. Here is an opportunity to provide free electricity or free heat to those homes. It is something that can be done, particularly in the context of the community fund. The regulation and legislation is there now. It is a matter of the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications looking at how it can work with the companies in that regard.

What I found interesting is the fact that on one third of the nights in 2023, electricity was being curtailed in this country. Electricity was being wasted in this country. This is expensive electricity we put in place in terms of the capital infrastructure. What this committee is looking at is not just dealing with the water tanks but going beyond that. Another Irish company, GlenDimplex, has the technology now where that curtailed electricity could actually be put into quantum storage heaters at night. However, there is also the opportunity for the owners of those quantum storage heaters to sell it back to the grid during the day so that people could get energy credits or electricity credits, which would be far more acceptable than large-scale battery storage or in combination with large-scale battery storage. The difficulty we have here is actually bringing all the aspects of this together.

A very interesting point was made this morning by Ms McDonnell regarding people managing their day-to-day chores now based on electricity demand. It is a pity the energy regulator in this country did not take a leaf out of EnergyCloud's book because even though we have 1.6 million smart meters installed in this country, we were informed last week that only 300,000 people have registered to actually get the data off those. Clearly, therefore, the energy regulator has been sitting on its hands for the past seven years in actually trying to maximise the utilisation of that data and giving that information and those tools to people. EnergyCloud has been able to do that with very constrained levels of funding as a charity in being able to relay and explain that to some of the most deprived communities and individuals in this country. As I said, the regulator could take a leaf out of its book. How many homes have been connected at the moment through EnergyCloud? What are the numbers?

Mr. Cathal Lee:

There are 152 families live with the three retailers. There are 338 connected and they are with the other retailers, and then we are talking-----

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Therefore, we are talking about half of 1% of the 75,000 people who want this installed.

Mr. Cathal Lee:

Yes.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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EnergyCloud's restriction is the capital moneys to install the existing analogue technology, or a bit of innovation through the SEAI, to actually commission a piece of research to provide the software, based on the existing smart meters we are putting in, to be able to roll this out remotely, not only to water tanks but potentially to innovative storage heaters around the country, and this would be for peanuts, with a small bit of joined-up thinking.

EnergyCloud is saying it currently takes one hour to install. What is the cost of that install? Is there merit in looking at this in the context that we were told that last year, there were just short of 6,000 homes with a deep retrofit carried out. The scary thing about this is that there were 1,600 homes for which the SEAI said it was not going to carry out installations. Half of those were because the houses were not suitable for installations. The other half were for different reasons. Would it not make sense in those cases for the SEAI, at a very minimum, to spend one hour installing the technology to ensure that, after telling people it is not going to do anything for them after those people having spent two years on a waiting list, it could do something as basic as this and at least give these people a free tank of water one in three nights in the year? Again, there seems to be a lack of joined-up thinking across the board with regard to what we are looking at.

I will turn to Irish Rural Link for a minute. In Mr. Boland's initial evidence, he said that its member organisations do not know about the programmes that are going on at the moment. We are talking about community organisations around the country that are advocating for communities and are unaware of the schemes and projects that are available. There is something fundamentally wrong in terms of the communication strategy if we are not even getting to those representative organisations, never mind the community groups on the ground. It is clear there is a communications deficit that needs to be addressed.

Mr. Boland spoke about the anomalies in the fuel allowance. One of the recommendations this committee made to the Minister for Social Protection is that we need to address those anomalies but we also need to introduce a half-rate fuel allowance for people who are just over the threshold so that it is not an all-or-nothing situation.

The committee had the opportunity yesterday to get a technical briefing from the SEAI regarding hydrotreated vegetable oil, HVO. We were told that 90% of HVO could be blended with 10% kerosene in a mix. It could run existing oil-fired central heating systems with the cost of converting the boiler of about €300. We could reduce the amount of fossil fuels being consumed in oil-fired central heating by 90% if we invested €300 in every home. The difficulty is that we do not have the HVO, and we will not be able to meet current demand. However, the SEAI pointed out that by 2030, the demand for heating oil will go from 15,000 GWh to 4,000 GWh. Based on the existing projections, there would be 1,500 GWh of HVO available. About one third of the demand could be met, so we could blend it at 30% rather than 90%. That is based on existing projections relating to the EU market.

My next question is for Mr. Boland. In the context of dealing with the challenges we have in respect of agriculture and livestock and the fact that farmers are struggling to make an income rearing cattle, would it not make sense for us to increase production of HVO? We could produce rapeseed oil to meet the demand for HVO here. This would reduce biogenic methane emissions from cattle and provide a badly needed cash crop for farmers. It would also meet some of the State's sustainability challenges. I stand open to correction, but I think we have by far the highest number per capitaof oil-fired central heating systems in Europe. District heating or natural gas are not going to crack the nut here. This is because we are so dependent on oil-fired central heating and, sadly, a huge amount of solid-fuel heating as well. Is this a win-win opportunity to meet the sustainability needs, address the difficult challenge of oil-fired central heating and provide cash crops for farming families that are struggling to make an income at present? I will ask Mr Lee to address those questions first.

Mr. Cathal Lee:

There was a great deal in those questions. I will distil it down to two simple points. The first is what can be done now and how that can benefit people in a simple way. Ms McDonnell spoke about engagement with Clúid's residents. In one night out of every three last year, the residents were able to benefit from free water heating. That is the start of a just transition journey for many of those residents who were not engaged on the just transition because energy poverty is such a real thing for them.

The cost of modification is €300. Half of that relates to the installation. The key point is that it is about utilising existing assets. If we take 100,000 homes and put them together as a 3 kWh load, we have a 300 MW virtual power plant, for want of a better phrase. To do so, the infrastructure already exists to create the asset and this begins the journey.

On the question of what the SEAI or the regulator can do, the SEAI schemes have proven to be very successful at generating impetus to kick-start programmes, as it were. The scalability of this comes from local authority or approved housing body schemes whereby all residents are encouraged to opt in. This creates a scalability that would allow them to seek funding, support or grant aid from the SEAI. A long timeframe is not required; it can be done very quickly. The text messages residents get tell them that the renewable journey is happening for them and is benefiting them. The feedback I always hear from residents is that they are benefiting from renewable energy.

In terms of what can be done, there should definitely be engagement with the SEAI to have a specific programme for approved housing bodies and local authorities. The second thing to do is to work collaboratively with all the other State and semi-State actors to ensure that EnergyCloud is at the top of their agenda as they work to tackle energy poverty.

Mr. John Mullins:

The Cathaoirleach raised a number of points about the consumer making a contribution or making a loss because of curtailment. Historically, consumers have paid significant PSO levies via their bills, as the committee is aware. As I understand it, the PSO levy for all renewables is zero. In fact, renewables are the cheapest form of electricity on the grid. What is being lost, therefore, is power that could lower the wholesale price of electricity. The bad news for the committee is that from the graphs I look at with my own business and internationally, I can see that the price of gas and carbon is going to keep wholesale prices elevated. The geopolitical situation we are in, unless we have solutions, is not helping. The view is that the wholesale price of electricity will be higher than any renewable source well past 2030. We are dealing with a period of elevated electricity costs. This is the reason why EnergyCloud is so relevant in the context and also in the context that we will bring on more renewable energy between now and 2030, with higher levels of curtailment.

The answer to the question on the PSO levy is that, fortunately, the customer is not now paying such a levy for renewables. We are seeing renewable energy operators directly engaging with industry in Ireland and doing bilateral deals rather than going into the auctions. There will be a lower amount of PSO levy equivalents coming onto the market as we move forward. That is not to disregard the renewable energy support schemes. They are working fine. I have commented publicly they that they have been administered properly and have worked. There is increasing competition because industry wants to meet its environmental, social and governance obligations and because data centres and the large food ingredients producers want to engage directly on contracts with renewable operators.

The Cathaoirleach is right about the north west, the south-west and Galway. There are transition constraints that ultimately also kick in as overpowering constraints. These add to the problem we have due to the fact that we have a limited level of transmission infrastructure in those areas to deal with the amount of power being generated. This will be exacerbated when we have roll-out of electric vehicle chargers and greater levels of distribution concentration. We will have batteries in homes that may help with this. They will primarily be used in conjunction with solar PV to feed battery chargers. This does not get away from the fact that we have 3 kW in 77% of homes throughout the country that act as a battery for curtailed energy, which is on the increase. Our priority order is to feed the people who need it most and work our way up to actually get us to the figure of 550,000.

I very much welcome the suggestions made by the Deputies and Senators to extend our focus to DEIS schools, sports clubs and so on. We will take this suggestion back to our board and we will write to the committee in response to this conversation. Hopefully, we can keep the dialogue between EnergyCloud and the committee going in the future.

Mr. Seamus Boland:

I thank members for their many generous comments on the reality of the situation. We were involved in the deep retrofit and there were some delays in it. I am glad to learn the anomalies will be looked at by the committee. We need to begin to look at properly feeding through allowances to people who are on the brink. That is essential.

Regarding the HVO, this is very timely. Last week, as part of my work in Brussels, I had meetings with experts who have managed a lot of this type of work in Germany. I hope to bring these experts to Ireland. As I see it, the premise of the question is whether, given the difficulties and barriers we face in rolling out retrofit and the length of time it will take, we can do something, at least in the meantime, to resolve the issue. This is certainly a real possibility with HVO because it is relatively cheap. However, as has already been pointed out, there are issues with availability and creating a native industry to produce the fuel. It should not be beyond the possibilities of a first world nation, with agencies like Teagasc and others, to create such an industry. This is the first thing that should be done. We need to look at the scale and what we will perhaps end up doing. It can also solve some of the problems of tractors and other heavy machinery on farms. While I realise we are straying a little from the topic we are here to discuss, some of the work the German experts have done involves trying to replace farm diesel with this kind of oil. It can be done, but we need the industry to come in behind it.

I am not saying that would be the favoured possibility, but if we are clear that we want to reduce the bill on farms and for domestic rural households and get them on the ladder of the just energy transition, we may have to import this fuel. That may be another solution. One thing that is clear is that this area has not really been touched on in Ireland. In Irish Rural Link we have just started the process of investigating. We have met people from the green fraternity who are producing technical solutions to technical problems and who believe this is a way forward. Given that we do not have a native industry producing the oil, this would mean ramping up production of certain types of vegetables. The horticulture industry might have something to say about that. There are many issues to be resolved. At €300 per household, it does have the advantage of making more households in rural Ireland much greener and more energy transformational. It is a way forward but it requires major effort. We are a bit behind on it but I will assist in any way I can to try to make it happen.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank the witnesses for their evidence and their positive and constructive contribution to this engagement. I propose that the committee go into private session to consider other business.