We appreciate the opportunity to present Sustainable Energy Ireland to the joint committee. I will be brief to maximise discussion of the matters members wish to raise. While I am pleased to address members' questions as fully as possible, I may have recourse to my colleagues, Majella Kelleher and Morgan Bazilian, on matters of detail.
Members should have in their documentation a six page note which I prepared specifically for the meeting, appended to which is a list of 14 references. I will speak to six of these references, which we included in the information pack because members may not have had access to them previously.
As the joint committee is aware, Sustainable Energy Ireland was established by Act of the Oireachtas and 1 May 2002 was nominated establishment day. The chair and I, in our first five year strategy statement, undertook to strive to keep energy sustainability at the heart of public policy, business behaviour and private action. Our presence at the proceedings today facilitates that objective.
Our remit and responsibilities are broadly threefold, namely, to implement programmes agreed by the Government, provide advice to the Government on policies and measures with regard to sustainable energy, and stimulate sustainability policies and actions by public bodies, the business sector, local communities and individual consumers.
It may helpful to give an example of an issue on which SEI has delivered across the three areas of advice, programme implementation and market stimulation. I have chosen the example of the public sector programme, a €12.7 million initiative proposed by SEI to improve energy efficiency in public sector buildings. The programme had three elements, namely, design studies, model solutions and an energy management bureau, in which the private sector provides monitoring services remotely to groups of public buildings with a view to improving their energy management capability and performance. Through this programme we have funded 89 design studies, 76 model solutions and up to three of the bureaux I described. The five case histories in the information pack illustrate the range of public buildings and facilities covered.
Members will be aware that sustainable energy is a subset of sustainable development. In that sense, three critical public policy objectives are usually observed, namely, economic aspirations, social aspirations and environmental objectives. Achieving a balance between these objectives constitutes good policy.
I turn now to energy efficiency and competitiveness and for that purpose I will refer to one piece of work in which SEI undertook to inform Government policy and industry's perspective with regard to energy savings. This was a negotiated agreement's pilot, whereby 26 companies volunteered to engage in a process that would simulate what we termed a negotiated agreement's process, by which, in exchange for waiving a recycling or putative tax, industry would undertake a set of energy saving actions. The results of the pilot were most encouraging and have informed both actors in the way we have suggested.
It would not have been possible to have 26 industrial volunteers without a track record of engagement with industry. This was achieved through the large industry energy network established by SEI, the annual report of which is included in the information pack. Eighty of our largest energy users are included in the network, which facilitates the communication of Government policy objectives and the action requirements of industry in responding to them.
Equally important for policy making is a firm statistical base. SEI has established an energy policy statistical support unit in Cork, proximate to the Central Statistics Office. The unit's first report, Energy in Ireland 2002, gives a background account in statistical form of a range of indicators with which it is possible to see how we have performed in regard to energy efficiency in industry and households. It is useful to record that energy efficiency improvements have been made in both instances. However, because of growth in household formation and industrial output, overall energy consumption has risen over the period in question. It is against the background of rising energy consumption and associated emissions that the Government is introducing emissions trading and carbon taxes.
I will briefly consider renewable energy and its background. Scenario planning, which has been undertaken by the private sector - in this instance, I have in mind the Shell company - and investment outlooks by the International Energy Agency each envisage our future energy requirements being met by an increasing share of renewable energy. This will be driven by the need to curtail emissions and likely price rises as oil and gas reserves deplete. It is important not to lose sight of the fact that both the bodies in question and all international commentators envisage a continuing role for fossil fuels into the medium term. In that connection, it is noteworthy that coal reserves are not forecast for depletion for centuries. There will, therefore, be an increasing interest in what are termed clean coal technologies. We envisage these trends developing.
Ireland has formal targets for the contribution of renewable energy to electricity supply, which were set out in the Green Paper of 1999. While the recent moratorium on wind was unwelcome, it underlines aspects of successful policy implementation. The renewable energy information office of Sustainable Energy Ireland was established to promote awareness, provide information and be a source of advice on the promotion of renewable energy. The office has worked closely with local authorities, the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, developers and resource owners with the objective of promoting Government targets in this area.
The existence of a surplus of planning permissions has allowed for a more competitive AER process which is testimony to our success. This contrasts with the experience in the United Kingdom where there was widespread, orchestrated opposition to the development of wind farms. An SEI attitude survey to wind is also included in the information pack.
SEI has successfully promoted Irish membership of several International Energy Agency implementing agreements, covering wind, ocean and biomass. This access to international experience and expertise will provide a deeper and firmer base for future plans and projections for renewable energy. SEI has already brought considerable international expertise to bear on the resolution of several of the technical issues underlying the moratorium on wind. We actively support the recently constituted strategy groups on biomass and CHP. Our support consists of the provision of a chair and a secretariat and the commissioning of independent studies and analyses to support the work of the groups in question.
SEI has a significant research and development programme. Its two main areas of activity are renewable energy and building. Within renewable energy we have the full spectrum of technologies covering wind, ocean, biofuels, biomass and solar. In the buildings area the focus is on energy efficiency, ventilation, solar energy, heat pumps and the orientation and insulation of houses.
I will comment briefly on the built environment before closing. SEI has a significant programme to address fuel poverty in low income households. Under this programme some 4,700 houses were in receipt of measures by the end of 2003. SEI believes that the introduction of a carbon tax will require a ramping up of this programme and, in order to do this effectively, the engagement of private sector resources to deliver the enlarged programme. We said as much in our submission to the Department of Finance on its carbon tax consultation paper.
Implementation of the EU directive on energy performance of buildings presents a formidable challenge. The directive will make energy a visible factor in the process of property purchase and rental, both new and existing stock, affecting over 100,000 transactions per annum. SEI is facilitating a co-ordinated approach by the two lead Departments - the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources - aimed at achieving effective and cost effective implementation across the Irish construction and property sector.
Many members will be familiar with "energy awareness week" which, in the main, is targeted at small consumers and households. As a result of successive campaigns we have seen sales growth of compact fluorescent lamps grow from 50,000 through 70,000 to 170,000 to 225,000 over the promotional period. Last year the campaign had a twin focus, one was "see red, switch off", which targeted standby power consumption on electrical appliances, and the other was an appliance labelling awareness scheme aiming to influence purchase choice, principally of white goods such as refrigerators, washing machines, freezers etc. I intend this year to expand the information with regard to appliances by putting performance, price information and sources on our website, which should also be an interesting consumer information programme.
