Reasons to be optimistic about Ireland’s fight against climate change in 2024

As we head into 2024, we now have no doubt that climate change is the single biggest crisis facing us as humans. If Planet Earth is to continue to be an hospitable home for us as a species, then we have serious changes to make to how we live here.

The immediate challenge is to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius or below by the end of this century. While that is looking increasingly unlikely, there are reasons to be optimistic when we look at the progress that we have made in Ireland over the last year.

While we will read plenty of bad news stories around climate change over the coming years, it’s important to remind ourselves that there are also reasons to be optimistic. Here are just some of those.

Solar power is getting cheaper and more adaptable

This month, Minister Eamon Ryan reported that 2023 was the year of solar revolution. In 2022 there were about 13 Gigawatt hours of solar in total. This rose to around 400 Gigawatt hours in 2023.

Solar power is complementary to wind power in Ireland and it works well with daily peak electricity demand. This year also saw the start of the schools solar scheme, under which every suitable school in Ireland will be provided with solar panels for their roofs over the next few years.

But one of the issues with solar is that we may run out of the material required to manufacture silicon cells for solar panels, so the search is on for an alternative.

In March of last year, Dr David Beynon of Swansea University reported that they have developed “the world’s first completely roll-to-roll printable perovskite solar cell”. While the technology is still in its early stages and needs to be made more efficient, Dr Beynon reported that “this points to the possibility of making cheaper solar cells on a much greater scale than ever before”.

Could perovskite become the new silicon in solar panels, or will some new technology be developed in the future? Either way, it is clear that solar power is becoming cheaper and more adaptable.

Home Rooftop Solar

With current SEAI grants and the removal of VAT from home solar installations, together with a payment for any excess electricity generated that is exported to the grid, homeowners can now achieve a cost of approximately 8-10c per kWh from rooftop PV solar power assuming a lifespan of 20 years.

This is a more understandable measure of its value rather than a ‘payback period’. While there is still a capital outlay of approximately €5k-10,000, financial institutions such as the credit union are happy to talk to customers interested in Green Loans tailored for such projects. It’s also comforting to know your electricity costs will be less volatile in future.

In addition, the recent grant of planning permission for a large solar farm on the Westmeath Offaly border is a step in the right direction. Elgin Energy Services has been granted permission for this 10-year initiative, which will have an operational lifespan of 40 years.

Offshore wind projects are growing

Ireland’s expansive coastline presents a unique opportunity for the development of offshore wind projects. The nation has embraced this potential with initiatives such as the Arklow Bank Wind Park, Ireland’s first offshore wind farm, which currently generates 25 Megawatts of power and there are plans for its expansion, together with plans for more offshore wind farms in the pipeline. The exploration of innovative solutions positions Ireland as a leader in the global transition to renewable energy.

Offshore wind farms are getting bigger and more efficient. The world’s largest offshore wind farm is now operational in the North Sea, 80km off the coast of Yorkshire.

Each of the 165 turbines in the Hornsea 2 Offshore Wind Farm is around 200m tall and a single rotation of the 81m blades on a single turbine takes six seconds and provides enough energy to power a home for a day.

There are positive tipping points too

We’ve heard a lot about climate tipping points in recent years and none of them make for pleasant reading. These are points beyond which changes such as the melting ice sheets and the loss of the Amazon rainforest will become uncontrollable and irreversible.

These can sometimes leave us with a sense of dread and helplessness – a feeling that there is nothing we can do about climate change, when in fact the opposite is true. The University of Exeter recently identified a number of “Positive Tipping Points in human societies that can propel rapid decabonisation”.

Professor Tim Lenton, director of the University’s Global Systems Institute, says that “switching to electric vehicles could drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This Tipping Point has already happened in Norway, where progressive policies have made electric vehicles cheaper than petrol cars, and more than half of vehicles bought now are electric”.

In the Irish midlands, one of the most positive tipping points has been the cessation of commercial peat harvesting for power generation and the conversion of Bord na Mona to a ‘climate solutions’ company, focused on renewable energy generation and peatland rehabilitation.

There are also positive tipping points in public opinion of climate change. The majority of people around the world now accept that climate change is being accelerated by human activity and that urgent action is required to decarbonise our economy.

This is particularly important to ensure that our politicians have the public support to make the climate-positive policy decisions that are necessary to set us on the right course if we are to successfully tackle climate change.

Communities are taking action

Communities are taking action in their localities and there are now more than 700 sustainable energy communities across the country. The Mullingar our Sustainable Energy Community is a step closer to developing a 100% community-owned solar farm which will generate enough energy to power 1000 homes.

The project is being developed with support from Westmeath County Council. There is good local support for the project, which it is hoped to progress in 2024. This is certainly a reason to be optimistic for the year ahead.

If you want to know more how you can make a change locally and learn about some local renewable energy initiatives, you can find out more on the Mullingar Sustainable

Energy Community website at www.mullingarsec.ie.