Ireland is unlikely to meet 2030 targets for retrofitting homes, installing heat pumps or reducing emissions, a report by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has warned.
The government committed to a full energy renovation – known as a “deep retrofit” – of half a million homes by 2030. So far only 57,932 homes have been upgraded.
The ESRI estimates that, at the current rate, the government will be 166,000 homes short of the target.
The rate of retrofitting would need to triple to get back on track by the end of the decade.
Progress on heat pump installations in existing housing is even slower with only 14,194 installations completed by the end of 2024, representing a mere 3.5 percent of the 400,000 target set by the government for 2030.
The ESRI says it estimates the government will achieve just over 50,000 homes by 2030.
When it comes to district heating schemes, there have been some success stories.
The Tallaght District Heating Scheme in Dublin is the first large-scale district heating network in Ireland. It makes use of heat generated by a nearby Amazon data warehouse.
Last year, the European Investment Bank agreed that it would share best practice on district heating schemes from other parts of Europe.
At the time, Energy Minister, Darragh O’Brien TD, said “district heating has huge potential for Ireland’s clean energy transition”.
But the ESRI says the government is way off target.
“Meeting the target of 2.5TWh of heat demand requires serving 187,000-314,000 homes with district heating by 2030. Current estimates suggest that 60,000 homes, at most, will be connected, achieving between 20-32 percent of the target.”
The report highlights “substantial shortfalls in delivery and discrepancies in performance metrics to date”, said Dr Muireann Lynch, Senior Research Officer at the ESRI.
“In this context, additional policy measures may warrant consideration.”
To get back on track, the ESRI suggests that more targeted incentive schemes could be more effective.
Targeting low income households and the most energy inefficient homes could pay the biggest dividends, the report suggests.
For rental homes, the “split incentives” problem between landlords and tenants could be resolved by incentivising landlords through tax benefits.
The report estimates that 40 percent of homeowners will be “highly unlikely” to undertake a deep retrofit or to switch to a heat pump heating system.
The ESRI says the government needs to be ready for alternative solutions for those homes including considering alternative fuels like LNG or Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO).
“Ireland’s progress towards decarbonising residential heating is significantly behind targets set in the Climate Action Plan”, the ESRI warns. If the government is still committed to its targets, it will have to act fast.