All-island Conference On Energy Efficiency And Job Creation

Scofflaw

Conference yesterday in Dundalk on the 'green economy', peak oil, renewable energy, leaving the carbon economy and so on. Some pretty interesting speakers - Duncan Stewart (eco eye), the CEOs of the ESB and Glenn Dimplex - and their presentations are available on the site: http://ec.europa.eu/ireland/events/all_island_energy_conference_2011/index_en.htm

One of the major impressions I came away with was that not very much is really being done to get across to the public at large just how much of a challenge we're facing in terms of energy over the next several decades. An interesting figure I came away with was that our energy imports cost €6-9 billion annually, all of which money simply leaves the country to, basically, Russia and the Middle East, and since it's unlikely that energy prices will go down, that figure will almost certainly continue to rise. So every 5-10 years the equivalent of the bank bailout leaves the country to pay for energy that could potentially be generated here instead.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Macha

What was John FitzGerald saying? In the past he has said price supports for wind are too high - which is what the ESRI used to say about energy efficiency.

Duncan's great for giving the sense of urgency.

Scofflaw

Macha wrote: »

What was John FitzGerald saying? In the past he has said price supports for wind are too high - which is what the ESRI used to say about energy efficiency.

Duncan's great for giving the sense of urgency.

He was saying that there should be no price supports for renewables, no feed-in tariffs, etc - the market would provide, if the price of electricity was right everything else would be fine, while any attempt to distort the market would inevitably result in job losses. Pretty much every other speaker disagreed with him - and, to be fair, when he was challenged on the question of how current market prices would provide energy security in a decade or more, given the long lead time for switching to alternatives, he accepted that there was a case to be made on that basis.

One of his other points was that the energy industry itself was a very expensive way of creating jobs, because creating generation capacity is capital intensive, while capital costs for Ireland are currently very high. I think everyone accepted that, but by and large nobody was pushing the idea of creating jobs in the energy industry as such, but rather through retrofitting and efficiencies. He was opposed to efficiency as a target in itself because he felt that if the market price of energy was right, then efficiency would naturally follow as a self-imposed target.

I didn't take any notes, I admit, because I've heard all that before, and while it makes complete sense on a graph, it makes very little sense where nobody's actually certain what fuel prices will do in the 2-5 year horizon used by companies and consumers, while we know that in the longer term we're facing a major fuel challenge.

I'm a big fan of the market, personally, but one thing it doesn't really do is forward planning, and I see no value in pretending that it will do so.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Macha

Thanks for that.

I can't believe he's still opposed to investing in energy efficiency. SEAI brought out a report showing that for every €1 of tax payers money it spent on advising SMEs, the SMEs saved €15 in energy. According to his logic, it would be happening by itself but it isn't - or at least not to the same extent.

I'm surprised no one was talking about jobs from renewables. We may not have a large manufacturing industry here but there are still jobs created in installation, operations and maintenance as well as supporting professions such as legal, IT systems, etc. Strange.

Scofflaw

Macha wrote: »

Thanks for that.

I can't believe he's still opposed to investing in energy efficiency. SEAI brought out a report showing that for every €1 of tax payers money it spent on advising SMEs, the SMEs saved €15 in energy. According to his logic, it would be happening by itself but it isn't - or at least not to the same extent.

I'm surprised no one was talking about jobs from renewables. We may not have a large manufacturing industry here but there are still jobs created in installation, operations and maintenance as well as supporting professions such as legal, IT systems, etc. Strange.

I may have put that badly - people were indeed talking about creating jobs in operations, maintenance, management, and all supporting industries, as well as through efficiency measures that allowed companies to retain jobs. It was really the idea of capacity installation being a particular job creator that didn't factor largely, although the point was made that while we don't have the manufacturing industry for turbines themselves, we do have it for installation, and perhaps in particular for the concrete bases.

The 'energy management' sector was the one most strongly put forward as a likely Irish possibility, though - that's largely a services and ICT game, which are things we are pretty strong in. Certainly, that's one I'm putting together something for myself.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Macha

The thing about renewable installations, well, wind turbines anyway, is that they're big and heavy. Generally, companies like Vestas like to manufacture them as close to the final destination as possible due to the large transportation costs involved. So it's possible manufacturing could take place on Ireland, assuming a significant level of demand.

I've heard concerns over possible future shortages of the ships that transport wind turbines, as well as the installation vessels. Many mistakenly believe the Isle of Wight Vestas manufacturing plant closed because of uncompetitive costs but Vestas themselves point to reduced demand in the UK for turbines, due to planning and connection issues. There's something depressingly familiar about that complaint..

Scofflaw

Macha wrote: »

The thing about renewable installations, well, wind turbines anyway, is that they're big and heavy. Generally, companies like Vestas like to manufacture them as close to the final destination as possible due to the large transportation costs involved. So it's possible manufacturing could take place on Ireland, assuming a significant level of demand.

I've heard concerns over possible future shortages of the ships that transport wind turbines, as well as the installation vessels. Many mistakenly believe the Isle of Wight Vestas manufacturing plant closed because of uncompetitive costs but Vestas themselves point to reduced demand in the UK for turbines, due to planning and connection issues. There's something depressingly familiar about that complaint..

Belfast's is planning to re-use its "Titanic Quarter" - the old shipyards - as a renewables hub. They've signed a letter of intent with DONG Energy, a Danish renewables company, to set it up as a turbine construction base: http://www.belfast-harbour.co.uk/news/article40/belfast-harbour-aims-to-become-leading-uk-renewables-hub

cordially,
Scofflaw

Heroditas

Macha wrote: »

Thanks for that.

I can't believe he's still opposed to investing in energy efficiency. SEAI brought out a report showing that for every €1 of tax payers money it spent on advising SMEs, the SMEs saved €15 in energy. According to his logic, it would be happening by itself but it isn't - or at least not to the same extent.

He's not opposed to investing in it, per se. He's opposed to throwing loads of money at it and expecting it to be the cure for all ills.

Duncan Stewart is becoming a parody of himself at this stage. He said nothing of substance.
Fitzgerald dismantled what Stewart said fairly comprehensively, particularly Stewart's claim on creating over 180,000 green jobs.
This was the main point. What would all these people be employed doing? And if those jobs were created, what would be the effect on the rest of the economy, i.e. if increased energy prices and levies were used to create these jobs, there would be a very real danger of other industries suffering and either going out of business or leaving the country, thus creating further job losses.

The most impressive presentation was by the representative from Greiner. Large cuts in the energy consumption and if memory serves me correctly, the payback was less than 4 years.

The conference was disappointing in that most of the speakers said it was necessary and urgent that we create green jobs but zero ideas on how this would actually be done.

Nice lunch though and the wine was a bonus!

Scofflaw

Heroditas wrote: »

He's not opposed to investing in it, per se. He's opposed to throwing loads of money at it and expecting it to be the cure for all ills.

Duncan Stewart is becoming a parody of himself at this stage. He said nothing of substance.
Fitzgerald dismantled what Stewart said fairly comprehensively, particularly Stewart's claim on creating over 180,000 green jobs.
This was the main point. What would all these people be employed doing? And if those jobs were created, what would be the effect on the rest of the economy, i.e. if increased energy prices and levies were used to create these jobs, there would be a very real danger of other industries suffering and either going out of business or leaving the country, thus creating further job losses.

The most impressive presentation was by the representative from Greiner. Large cuts in the energy consumption and if memory serves me correctly, the payback was less than 4 years.

The conference was disappointing in that most of the speakers said it was necessary and urgent that we create green jobs but zero ideas on how this would actually be done.

I wouldn't agree with that, precisely - I would have said there were no concrete suggestions of immediate practical application. What there was instead was a focus on how policy level instruments could encourage the environment for job creation, and which end of the whole sector was most appropriate for that.

If I were asked to come up with some practical suggestions based on what was said, I think I'd go with, first, the retrofitting industry - with appropriate training, I think developing Irish expertise in that is quite possible, and it's something that every country in Europe will need. There was also a simple practical suggestion in the idea of specialising in the foundations of onshore wind turbines. The other major areas that would be of interest are the energy management sector, which is a legal/ICT services area which would go well with our current competences, and the energy control sector, which goes well with the above and with our light industrial base.

I'd agree with Fitzgerald that the idea of creating jobs though trying to create our own capacity is a hugely expensive route, particularly since most of our desirable real-estate is offshore, and offshore anything is somewhere we lack expertise almost across the board. But I wouldn't consider the idea of a large number of 'green' jobs inherently ridiculous on a 5-10 year timescale. It's happening, it's a very large opportunity - ground floor of an industry, really - and there's no reason not to look at developing expertise. In a sense, the problem is that the range of opportunities is so wide that a conference aiming to cover the whole industry is going to sound a mile wide and an inch deep - I dare say that a conference specifically on, say, energy control, would give a much stronger impression of real action.

Heroditas wrote: »

Nice lunch though and the wine was a bonus!

The after-lunch sessions were very much less well-attended, perhaps partly as a result!

cordially,
Scofflaw

Macha

When you say energy control sector, do you mean building management systems, smart meters etc?

Heroditas

Scofflaw wrote: »

I dare say that a conference specifically on, say, energy control, would give a much stronger impression of real action.

In that regard, it'll be interesting to see if anything worthwhile is discussed/presented in Croke Park on the 23rd.

Scofflaw

Macha wrote: »

When you say energy control sector, do you mean building management systems, smart meters etc?

Pretty much.

Heroditas wrote:

In that regard, it'll be interesting to see if anything worthwhile is discussed/presented in Croke Park on the 23rd.

Sure. It's an interesting area, and I think something that was stressed by all the participants is the sheer scale of the upcoming energy challenge (and how little public awareness there was of it).

cordially,
Scofflaw

easychair

Scofflaw wrote: »

They've signed a letter of intent with DONG Energy, a Danish renewables company,

cordially,
Scofflaw

What an unfortunate choice for a name!