In January of this year, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications established a Heat and Built Environment Taskforce to accelerate and drive delivery in relation to retrofitting, renewable heat, district heat and decarbonisation of the building stock. The overarching aim of the Taskforce is to identify work on the critical path to key targets under each area, ensure alignment in the development of policies and activities underway across Government departments, and proactively manage risks to ensure targets are achieved.
The Taskforce is chaired by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, and its membership comprises senior officials from Government Departments and agencies with retrofitting, renewable heat, district heating networks, decarbonisation of heating and operational energy use optimisation in the building stock related actions under the Climate Action Plan. The Taskforce’s Terms of Reference and Minutes of its meetings and objectives are available on gov.ie
An Industrial Heat Decarbonisation Working Group under the Taskforce has been established to oversee and support the development of a Roadmap for the decarbonisation of industrial heat.
The link between fossil fuels and economic progress must be completely decoupled. Under the sectoral emission ceilings agreed in July 2022, the industry sector must reduce emissions by 35% by 2030 from the 2018 baseline. The majority of emissions from industry arise from the generation of heat in manufacturing processes. We must reduce the impact of this heat demand through greater energy efficiency, and by switching away from fossil fuels for generating that heat. Decarbonising our manufacturing sector alongside our energy sectors is key to Ireland’s future economy and competitiveness.
Under Climate Action Plan 2023, my Department is leading on the development of this roadmap to set out the key policy interventions required to progress the decarbonisation of our industrial heat. The roadmap will include a pathway to the electrification of low temperature heat, and the prioritisation of decarbonised gas for use in high temperature heating. The roadmap will develop actions for inclusion in the next Climate Action Plan and will address the three carbon budget periods up to 2035.
The Industrial Heat Decarbonisation Working Group has met twice to date, since its establishment in spring of this year and will meet more regularly over the coming months as it accelerates development of the Roadmap, to be delivered in Q4 of this year. The membership of the group has been agreed and is chaired by officials from my Department. Relevant officials from the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications attend each meeting of the Working Group.
