GUEST BLOG: The energy trilemma

by Jim Rice, president, France Ireland Chamber of Commerce and managing director, Schneider Electric Ireland 

Delivering policies that simultaneously address energy security, universal access to affordable energy services, and environmentally sensitive production and use of energy, is one of the most formidable challenges facing Government and industry today.

The World Energy Council’s definition of energy sustainability is based on three core dimensions – energy security, energy equity, and environmental sustainability. These three goals constitute a ‘trilemma’, entailing complex interwoven links between public and private actors, governments and regulators, economic and social factors, national resources, environmental concerns, and individual behaviours.

Energy security, accessibility and sensitive are central to any discussion on future energy needs. The energy trilemma provides a clear framework to deliver the energy transformation and make sustainable energy systems a reality.

This of course is a very high level view of what we face on a daily basis – in fact by 2050 energy demand is forecast to double but we need to decrease our emissions by a factor of two – this is referred to as the Energy Dilemma.

TARGETS

In Ireland, we are half way towards our 2020 renewable target, which is good news, but this is only one dimension. Energy efficiency is becoming more and more important and people and companies behaviour in terms of their energy consumption is central to this debate.

The annual Energy Show, which was launched by SEAI some 15 years ago, has grown from strength to strength. It is the annual flagship event hosted in spring in the RDS in Dublin, whereby energy users, specialists and policy makers come together and demonstrate and debate best in class applications to enable energy efficiency across many sectors. SEAI are setting the guiding principles and devising policies to set the scene for Ireland to be an exemplar in terms of energy efficiency and integration of renewable energy sources.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION

The French Ambassador in Ireland – HE Jean-Pierre Thebault – has a strong interest in the whole subject of climate change and has established an energy sustainability council as part of the French Embassy initiatives – whereby a number of energy specialist companies (headquartered in France) have come together to collaborate on this topic. Companies such as Schneider Electric, Veolia, Open Hydro, St Gobain, Freyssinet and Cofely are all significant players on the Irish energy landscape.

The first Ireland France Sustainable Energy Forum took place at the Energy Show on Wednesday 25^th March. This was opened by HE Jean-Pierre Thebault whereby he described the Forum as a first step in starting a new stream of cooperation between Ireland and France. He talked about the importance of this topic in relation to climate change and that many French companies are here to support the community in Ireland to meet and exceed the energy targets for 2020 and beyond.

There were three French guest speakers – Francois Moison, executive director of ADEME (SEAI French counterparts); Étienne Crepon, chairman of the Scientific and Technical Centre for Building in France and Gerard Gouran, deputy mayor of La Rochelle.

Francois Moisan spoke about projects in France that allow companies to share the risk of innovation. He also offered to share ADEME activities with Ireland in the future – clearly a positive indication of future opportunities for Ireland. He also outlined the French Energy Bill on energy transition and setting objectives for green growth. The objectives are determined by energy demands in France by 2050 and the countries ability to reduce share in nuclear energy.

He also referred to the aim of refurbishing 500,000 houses per year, and how in order to reach these objectives there is the obligation of energy efficiency on behalf of the energy suppliers.

Crepon discussed the 350,000 companies in construction in France and the positive impact for SMEs in terms of business and employment in this sector.

URBAN ENERGY

The city of La Rochelle is a pioneer in urban energy and spoke about two significant collaborative projects: Tribute Project, a simulation/one-stop tool for buildings, and Atlantech Project, which involves the development of a green building industry.

The French speakers gave interesting insights into the building sector in France and Majella Kelleher, head of Energy Demand Management at SEAI explained some of the Irish dynamics whereby houses are up 50% in size, but down 32% in energy use in Ireland since 1990. She went on to explain that renewables – bio energy and wind – are of the greatest importance in Ireland and that it represents a €2.2 to €2.9bn opportunity in Ireland if we reach energy targets for 2020.

There followed a panel discussion covering smart energy and ‘Imaging Tomorrow’s Energy Now’. This discussion touched on the concepts of Smart City, Smart Home and Smart Grid. The panel of experts included Mark Keogh of Schneider Electric, Jonathan Jennings of Glen Dimplex, Fintan Smyth of Saint Gobain and Mark Coyne of Veolia. This was a wide-ranging debate and each participant gave good examples of success stories in their own domain.

The concluding remarks stressed the importance of energy education and cited the availability of online Energy Efficiency Training available from Schneider Electric’s Energy University, which is free of charge and available to all. To register go to: MyEnergyUniversity.com. It is also worth noting that St Gobain has just opened a training Academy for construction expertise.

Furthermore, the importance of collaboration was also cited as being a key factor for delivering smart applications and being able and willing to work with partners and indeed competitors in order to achieve the desired outcomes. The companies mentioned above are world leaders in energy efficiency and are well established in Ireland for many years. They are involved in many exciting projects and provide Irish consumers with world-class products, systems, solutions and expertise in this complex energy landscape.

Ireland needs to continuously benchmark with other countries and learn from their experiences – such as La Rochelle, which is a fantastic success story. This initiative by HE Jean-Pierre Thebault is the first step in building those bridges for collaboration and creates a great opportunity for future events with SEAI and other stakeholders.

Photos: El Alvi and Ryan McDonald