SEAI
Summary
Maggie McCarthy, Director of Research and Policy Insights at the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), gave us her three policy changes and two personal changes for a greener world.
One policy is accelerating massive scale out of district heating. While still a relatively unknown concept in Ireland, district heating has been a feature of many European countries for many years.
In simple terms, it is the use of a central heating source to deliver heated water to multiple buildings through insulated pipes. It is a more efficient way of delivering heat, using less energy to reach the same ends. But it is also possible for the central sources to either be from excess waste heat from the likes of data centres, or decarbonised heat sources like biomass boilers.
Following years of stagnation, McCarthy wants to see district heating finally take off in Ireland. "Heat has been the forgotten element of the energy movement,” she said.
In a 2022 study produced by the SEAI, district heating was shown to be a key technology that could help us meet our climate targets.
“It identified that district heating could meet up to 50 per cent of our building heat needs, which is huge potential. That wasn’t only the big cities, but larger scale towns too,” she said.
“What the heat study did showed the potential at a national level and that we are actually a viable market for district heating similar to our Scandinavian and Nordic neighbours that have raced ahead of us.”
Plans for legislation on district heating are being formulated this year, and McCarthy hopes more projects like the pilots in Tallaght and Poolbeg in Dublin will be rolled out shortly.
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