Renewable energy targets 'virtually unachieveable'

An environmental activist wearing a costume displays a placard in a hallway during the COP28 United Nations climate summit in Dubai on December 3, 2023. Picture: KARIM SAHIB / AFP

Ireland’s target of 80% renewable electricity by 2030 is virtually unachievable because of fractured planning and policy, according to nearly all experts in the industry.

A new report by KPMG, which comes as world leaders gather in Dubai for the Cop28 climate summit, found that 95% of experts believe Ireland’s Climate Action Plan’s renewable electricity target cannot be met.

It echoes Environment Minister Eamon Ryan’s comments about delays in rolling out renewable projects in recent days, where he told the Oireachtas Climate Committee that current “incredibly elongated” planning and legal systems are hampering climate ambitions.

“We do clearly have a problem in our planning system and in our legal system. It leads to delivery of certain projects in a timeline that is not compatible with our climate targets,” Mr Ryan said.

The system takes 10 years to deliver a bus lane, he claimed.

“We have a whole load of wind and solar projects that as soon as they get out of planning, tend to be judicially reviewed, and that takes another incredibly elongated and very expensive process that I don’t think necessarily serves the public sometimes,” he said.

Under the Climate Action Plan, the Government aims to have 50% of Ireland’s electricity made by renewable sources by 2025 before hitting the 80% mark by the end of the decade.

According to Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures from last year, Ireland’s share of renewable sources in electricity generation in 2020 at 39%.

However, when it came to overall renewable energy use, and not just for electricity, Ireland is an EU laggard at just 12.5% in 2021, according to Eurostat.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told fellow world leaders during his Cop28 address that Ireland has “a new Maritime Area Regulatory Authority to oversee Ireland’s renewable energy revolution and harness our vast offshore wind potential, powering millions of homes and businesses across the continent with clean, renewable energy”.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told fellow world leaders during his Cop28 address that Ireland has 'a new Maritime Area Regulatory Authority to oversee Ireland’s renewable energy revolution and harness our vast offshore wind potential, powering millions of homes and businesses across the continent with clean, renewable energy'. Picture: Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto/Getty

However, the KPMG report, commissioned by Wind Energy Ireland, found the current grid was designed for the fossil fuel economy of the late 20th century and is not fit for purpose.

Planning is the single biggest barrier to delivering the Climate Action Plan, according to the report, as “too few projects are coming through the planning system too slowly”.

The length and uncertainty of decision times, coupled with the risk of judicial reviews, undermines Ireland’s efforts to build onshore renewable energy, it said.

“There are concerns that the planning system in particular suffers from insufficient resourcing and that this has a disproportionate effect on the ability of industry to achieve results,” the report said.

Despite the Government’s insistence that the contentious Planning Bill will break through the blockage if enacted, most industry people are pessimistic about its chances to do so.

Targets that are being announced chop and change too much, with little thought as to how realistic they are, many industry experts said.

The Environment Minister claimed the current Planning Bill is a “critical piece of legislation”. The bill, which the Government says will streamline a cumbersome system, has come under fire from many quarters since it was first published, with concerns expressed about ordinary people’s access to justice, as well as the likes of environmental groups’ ability to challenge public authorities.