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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Text 51551 or email todaydmc at rte.ie. First this morning, the government is looking at one-off payments towards environmentally friendly energy measures like heat pumps and efficient cars. Tornished, as Simon Harris said over the weekend, several options are being considered.
It comes at a time, of course, when there's mounting political pressure due to the global energy crisis and rising costs. For more on this, I'm joined on the line by Ellen Coyne, political correspondent with the Irish Times, and by Dr Paul Dean, senior lecturer in clean energy at University College Cork. Good morning to you both. Ellen, I might start with yourself.
Can you take us through what's being considered here?
Sure, so this is obviously a fairly big concession by the government that even after digging three quarters of a billion euro out of its surplus to deal with the response to the fuel protests, obviously that is not enough. So Simon Harness kind of flagged this in a speech to the EPP in Dublin on Saturday and then was talking about it further yesterday.
He is now trying to move to a position where either one-off grants or accessible finance would be made available on a one-off basis to people If they want to try to pursue more expensive, but ultimately more sustainable heating and car options, so like electric cars, installing heat pumps in your house, or maybe trying to switch to HVO, which is hydro-treated vegetable oil.
And in some scenarios that can be used to heat your home. Obviously, the backdrop to all of this is that the government is conscious that despite what everyone said in 2022 about the dangers of relying on volatile oil and energy markets that we have no control over. Europe has kind of made the same mistake again, has found ourselves in the same position.
And it seems that the government is doubling down on trying to pursue just transition policies. We know we're not that popular. But the idea is that if people are able to switch to more sustainable energy models, then that is obviously cheaper than throwing three quarters of a billion euro at an economy that overly relies on carbon fuel for heating and transport.
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Chapter 2: What are the government's proposals for one-off payments for EVs and heat pumps?
And I think Simon Harris also made a concession that obviously this issue is all being prompted by the US-Israel war on Iran. But even before that, he's kind of saying that energy prices in Ireland were already too high. So this is something that maybe should have been considered before now, but maybe it's better late than never.
And did he give any indication of when this would be brought in? The budget, I presume, is it?
Well, I was asking someone about that yesterday and they were kind of saying it's not really tethered to this budget, but I suppose just given that this is an urgent political issue that is obviously biting right now, I would imagine that this is something they would want to move forward sooner rather than later. He has literally just asked officials to start looking at this.
So they'll be looking at it through the tax group within the Department of Finance and also through available capital, really burning through that surplus at a rate of knots at the moment. But yeah, for this to have any political effect, it would have to be soon.
OK, Alan, thank you for that. I want to bring in Dr Paul Dean, Senior Lecturer in Clean Energy at University College Cork. Morning, Paul. Morning, David. Now, there are some fairly chunky grants out there already, but for a lot of them, you have to pay the money out first and then claim them back. And that's a real issue for a lot of people, isn't it?
It is, David. Look, David, there's a horrible cruelty, I suppose, attached to this energy affordability element, you know, and And the irony is, I suppose, that if you want to save money on your energy bills and your heating bill and your transport bill or your electricity bill, you have to invest money.
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Chapter 3: How is the political pressure influencing energy policy in Ireland?
And look, there's a coalition of people out there who are incredibly willing, but just financially not able. Now, look, David, I will give credit to the government and SEAI out there at the moment. If you're able to engage with them, there's a very generous grants out there. But unfortunately, look, it's a big upfront payment.
And the challenge for people who are really struggling at the moment, if you're in energy poverty at the moment, you can't plan for the future. You prioritize the immediate. And the idea of, you know, having 50,000 or 60,000 euros available for your home, for your home energy upgrade, you know, that's out of reach of most people.
So I think we do need to be more innovative, more creative in making more financial options. And also, the people who are on the lowest level of income do need the highest level of direct support.
Yeah, well, particularly for something like solar panels, which are a no-brainer. I mean, they cut your electricity bills. They're wonderful and all the rest of it. But at the moment, you have to lay out, you know, eight, nine, ten grand for them. So if there could be a subsidy scheme for that, it would probably be very effective.
Yeah, and I think a big challenge here, Dave, is just spreading those costs over longer periods of time. And as you're correct, look, solar is one of those really good ways that works really well. And look, whatever about saving the planet, people want to save money. And solar is one of those things that is a very obvious way for...
putting a big dent in your electricity bills over the period from April to September. Now, you're still going to be facing high electricity bills in December and in the winter months. One of the things, David, I think we should be exploring here in Ireland, particularly around home heating, and this is an idea that they're looking at in the UK. It's an idea called project-linked finance.
This means if you want to retrofit your home, which costs, let's just say, €60,000 to €70,000, a huge outlay of money, that that loan is linked to the property rather than to the person. So that means that the loan is paid back over a much longer period, over the lifetime of the property, let's say 80 to 100 years, rather than the economic lifetime of the person.
And what that does, David, it doesn't reduce the cost, but it spreads the payback over a much longer period. So if you're living in a home and let's say you sell your home or you die or your kids inherit the home, they would take that debt on. The next owner in the house then would take on the debt because they also take on the benefit.
And they're the kind of things, David, I think we really need to be looking at. There's lots of legal reasons why all these things are challenging, but spreading those costs over much longer periods is one of the things that we need to do because the upfront cost element of any of these clean energy technologies is a barrier for most people out there.
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