CIRISES EVERYWHERE? IRISH SOLAR IS PART OF THE SOLUTION

Updated February 28th, 2025

By Morgan Pierce

“Sex for rent” and “Bed in a shed”. These were just two of this week’s frightening headlines about the twin crises of the housing shortage and the cost of living.

We learned, meanwhile, that more than 80,000 properties – each one of them a potential family home – lie vacant or derelict across the state.

Sometimes it feels as if the “joined up thinking” and “common sense” politicians like to talk about are in just as short supply as affordable homes or lower household bills.

Ireland is one of only a few countries in the EU that will not exceed its solar energy target by 2030 – that means that as a nation we and Irish solar needs to do better. And the place where we need to concentrate our efforts are among our neediest citizens.

Like elsewhere around the globe, Ireland’s renewable energy target is driven by the need to mitigate the threat of climate change by decarbonising the energy sector.  As this report by the World Energy Council makes clear, the transition to a renewables-based green economy, will ultimately be more efficient, equitable and sustainable.

Every energy user in the country is funding that transition – with things like the PSO levy added to all our electric bills to help fund the infrastructure changes required to support renewables. And we must all share equally in the advantages.

As this important analysis by the Public Policy Institute makes clear, however, not everyone can reap those benefits.

“The energy transition perpetuates issues faced by low-income groups, who are highly vulnerable to experiencing energy poverty,” the report’s authors conclude. “‘Energy poverty’, as a concept, can overlap with deprivation or other forms of poverty and has been defined in Ireland as the inability to achieve standard thermal warmth and energy services within a household at an affordable cost, dependent on household income, a dwelling’s energy efficiency levels, and the cost of household energy.”

Official figures suggest that more than 550,000 Irish households are currently living with the affects of energy poverty, and up to 43% of households are at risk of doing so.

“We need to focus especially on vulnerable, low-income households,” Seda Orhan, Renewable Energy Manager at Climate Action Network Europe said recently, “These are the parts of society that have not been engaged in the energy transition.”

How can Irish Solar help?

One thing we can do is to be advocates for innovative “joined up” thinking.

In the last year, for example, Councillors in several counties – the politicians closest to what ordinary Irish people are experiencing – pointed out that low-income residents in their areas were struggling to afford measures meant to help with the Irish renewable and Irish solar energy transition.

In Galway, Councillor Niall McNelis (Lab) said people in social houses in his constituency could not afford to retrofit their homes or install solar panels, and many middle-income homeowners couldn’t either. Similar complaints have arisen in other counties.

In Offally, Councillor John Clendennen brought a motion before the County Council to introduce a policy that all public housing developments include the installation of solar panels as standard.

The Public Policy Institute sensibly points out that:

Low-income groups encounter significant barriers to accessing energy-efficient resources and renewable energy technologies because of the high costs that must be paid upfront, and long payback periods.

Energy inefficiency is a key issue for low-income groups, who often live in older dwellings or less-energy efficient homes. This causes low-income households to consume more energy to heat their homes, despite precarious financial situations.

The most effective way of addressing this is through direct government financial intervention. The measure Cllr. Clendennen proposed – making solar “standard” in social housing, is one way of doing that.