8. ENERGY TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND DEMONSTRATION
However, a national inventory of all energy RD&D projects ongoing in Ireland does not exist. This potentially weakens possible synergies among the different initiatives and programmes.
The SEAI is creating a detailed national project inventory for energy RD&D projects that will enhance the knowledge base at the government level about the various ongoing activities covering the previous 3-5 years. It is developing a new methodology for future collection of data about national public investment in energy RD&D. The SEAI is also working closely with the IEA to investigate optimal approaches for the collection of national energy RD&D statistics.
SEAI efforts do not include data collection from the private sector, which could create a lacuna in the statistical output and potentially under-report the full extent of RD&D activity in the country. The SEAI investigation of possible methodologies for collecting data about private sector investment in energy RD&D is therefore a welcome development.
Policies and programmes
Ireland’s RD&D strategy is guided by the 2015 White Paper and the 2016 Energy Innovation Ireland Strategy, with the objective of establishing the country as a leading European energy innovation hub. RD&D is seen as a key enabler for the country’s energy transition to a low-carbon economy while also creating economic opportunities and employment. Energy is recognised as one of the six themes in Innovation 2020, Ireland’s 5 year strategy on the R&D of science and technology. Over 40 different government programmes and strategies feed into Ireland’s RD&D policy.
The 2016 Energy Innovation Strategy establishes a link among basic technology research and innovation in business models and service provisions, behavioural economics and energy modelling, and presents those as a holistic approach for Ireland’s RD&D strategy (DCENR, 2016). It highlights the need to provide sustained funding to ensure sustainability for Irish research organisations to attract and retain skilled and experienced researchers. The strategy specifically mentions the need for enhanced monitoring and evaluation metrics to better assess the progress made and to allow for adjusting the RD&D strategy on time.
Building on this, the SEAI prepared its Statement of Strategy 2017-2021 (SEAI, 2017a), which identifies the four key priorities of its energy RD&D activities as:
increase funding of R&D projects and test sites with national and international impact
enhance Irish engagement with the EU Horizon 2020 programme
increase delivery of demonstration and innovation projects contributing to enterprise development
increase mapping and co-ordination of Irish energy research, leading to a higher impact.
The SEAI decides on priority investments of its RD&D funds by applying a blended model of top-down and bottom-up priority setting. The top-down priority setting is undertaken through cross-sectoral consultations with important stakeholders to ensure that investments produce a tangible impact that meet the innovation, practice and policy needs of a range of cross-government sectors.
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The SEAI is actively promoting the creation of co-funding partnerships with other government bodies, through its national energy RD&D funding programme. This allows the SEAI to leverage its investments allocated using the top-down approach. The approach results in a tangible impact by meeting cross-sectoral and cross-government research, innovation and policy needs. SEAI RD&D programmes in 2018 involved co-funding from organisations in the agriculture, environment, marine, meteorological and transport sectors.
The bottom-up priority setting model allows the energy RD&D community to apply for funding of projects that have not been identified in the top-down prioritisation exercise. This mixed prioritisation model provides the flexibility needed to ensure that Irish RD&D remains open to a broad range of possible investments and is not limited to the outcome of the top-down priority setting exercise. This caters for the fast-evolving energy transitions taking place nationally and internationally, and allows the Irish research community to actively engage in priority setting.
The SEAI launched several new initiatives in 2018. For the first time, it is now funding multi-year projects up to a value of EUR 650 000 and up to 4 years’ duration to facilitate the implementation of longer, larger and more-effective projects. EUR 2.5 million was available under the SEAI funding programme for 2018. The SEAI plans to inaugurate an annual National Forum on Energy Research under the motto energy research meets policy in 2019 to enhance the link between technology and policy. The forum will bring together the Irish energy research community, industry and policy makers to share their experiences, priorities and ambitions relating to energy research and innovation.
An important objective of Ireland’s national energy RD&D funding programme is to strengthen the national energy research and innovation capacity of academic institutions and industry. This will allow them to compete for other national and international RD&D funding programmes and allow the Irish energy research community to take leadership roles in international collaboration programmes. The focus of the RD&D portfolio is on supporting new sustainable energy technologies to better exploit and integrate indigenous renewable resources. This includes the development of wind power, bioenergy, solar power, smart grids, behavioural insights, energy efficiency and marine renewables, and the deployment of ocean energy devices and systems. Emerging international research areas such as those relating to hydrogen also offer potential benefits and align well with the Irish resource endowment and its energy sector policies.
Ocean energy
Ocean energy (including offshore wind, wave and tidal power) offers large potential for Ireland due to the country’s long coastline with open water. Ocean energy is therefore a key priority research area for Ireland, and a comprehensive programme of activities is being implemented. The Offshore Renewable Energy Development Policy (OREDP) published by the DCCAE in 2014 indicated a potential of deploying 6 megawatts of offshore renewables by 2030.
The SEAI manages the Ocean Energy Programme to support the development of renewable ocean energy installations, under the auspices of the OREDP. The budget was EUR 4.75 million in 2018. The SEAI also funds various applied energy research and demonstration programmes through the Ocean Energy Programme and is continuing development of energy test site infrastructure. The focus of the programme is to provide
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an innovation hub for the deployment of marine renewable energy technologies and services, and to create an early stage industry that includes the possibility of exporting electricity from these sources.
A focus of the programme is the Ocean Energy Prototype Development Fund to stimulate the development and deployment of ocean energy devices and systems. The fund supported 26 offshore renewable energy projects in 2018 (of which 12 were newly approved in the same year) and the continued development of energy test site infrastructure.
A group of research institutions with support from the Science Foundation Ireland established the Marine Renewable Energy Ireland (MaREI) Research Centre in 2013. Its primary focus was to advance the science, engineering and commercialisation of marine renewable energy by undertaking basic and applied research. The MaREI centre has a budget of EUR 55 million for the period 2013-19, with EUR 5 million contributed by industry. It has grown rapidly since its creation and now has 200 researchers across six academic institutions and over 45 industry partners. There is collaboration with 20 countries. The centre is co-ordinated by the Environmental Research Institute at University College Cork, and has submitted a funding request for post-2019. The new application would see the research base double to 12 institutions.
Ireland is actively engaging in international work and is applying its leadership capacity in this regard. The SEAI is a member of the Ocean Energy European Research Area Networks Cofund (OCEANERA-NET COFUND), a network of eight national and regional funders and managers of research and innovation programmes from six European countries. OCEANERA-NET co-ordinates funding programmes among European countries and regions to support research and innovation in the ocean energy sector. The SEAI is also a member of the Ocean Power Innovation Network (OPIN), which is a joint initiative of state bodies and key interests in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland involved in ocean energy. Its aim is to collaborate on ocean energy technology development. Participating entities include the SEAI, Invest Northern Ireland, Scottish Enterprise, and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. The OPIN was awarded grant aid in the second half of 2018 by the European Union to expand operations to other EU member states and industry. The SEAI will lead this project.
Sustainable bioenergy
The SEAI spends about 20% of its total RD&D funding on bioenergy and biofuels. It awarded funding for eight RD&D projects in the bioenergy sector in 2017, two of which focused on the need to involve multiple stakeholders. The Enabling the Bioenergy Sector to Understand and Assess Life Cycle Sustainability project was led by the Irish Bioenergy Association. This research project focused on the generation of new industry knowledge and guidance on life-cycle analysis and its application to bioenergy. It also discussed sustainability criteria of local bioenergy supply chains in Ireland (IrBEA, 2017).
The ReBiogen project developed a viable business model supporting mobilisation and exploitation of Ireland’s agri-food, marine, forestry and municipal waste residues for recovery of renewable energy. It focused on designing a community-based model across multiple stakeholders that can aggregate and mobilise supply of a range of feedstocks within a given locality and which deploys shared processing infrastructure to recover
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