New research will be carried out into the future of Northern Ireland’s electricity market and our ability to hit ambitious government targets, it can be revealed.
The Department for the Economy is now seeking a third party to carry out “research and modelling associated with the delivery” of hitting our agreed 80% renewable energy target in just a little over five years.
The industry here has remained sceptical about Northern Ireland’s ability to increase its renewable energy production to that target, amid a slow planning system and other barriers.
The sector says we now need around 50 major schemes, shovel-ready, by 2026.
Renewable power generation actually fell by 3% in the last year.
Now the Department is seeking a £140,000 tender into researching the landscape and how, or if, that will be achievable.
“The Northern Ireland Executive adopted the Energy Strategy for Northern Ireland in December 2021,” the fresh tender says.
“The vision of the strategy sets out how Northern Ireland will achieve net zero carbon and affordable energy, in line with UK Government commitments, by 2050.
“The Energy Strategy identified a target of 70% of electricity consumption to be from a diverse mix of renewable sources by 2030. This target has since increased to 80% through the Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022.
“In March 2024, the Department for the Economy (DfE) published the Energy Strategy Action Plan for 2024 which outlines some of the key actions being delivered as part of the Executive’s Energy Strategy – The Path to Net Zero Energy.
“One of the identified actions states: ‘DfE will commission research into the costs and benefits to the NI consumer for different Interconnection scenarios, multiple energy storage options and the 80% renewable electricity target up to 2030 and beyond’.
“This project relates to the commissioning of research and modelling associated with the delivery of this agreed action.”
The local renewables sector has called for “urgent action” to expedite planning applications and appeals to get enough wind, solar and battery developments operating to meet the ambitious 80% green electricity generation target by 2030.
RenewableNI says around 2.5GW of extra capacity is needed in order for Northern Ireland to generate enough power to reach the target set by the Stormont Executive.
That equates to around 50 solar or wind schemes, based on some of the proposed developments and those which are already up-and-running.
It comes as planning decisions here are taking longer on average across our councils, while the appeals process is slowing amid what it claims are “significant resourcing pressures”.
According to Steven Agnew, director of RenewableNI, we have moved from being “leaders to laggards” in green energy.