The Chairperson of ICMSA Farm business Committee, Pat O’Brien, has praised the attitude and commitment of SEAI which, he said, had moved decisively into the area of farmer renewables and was “picking up the TAMS slack” that had resulted from TAMS wholesale rejection of farmer applicants and what Mr O’Brien said was the scheme’s “steady slide into irrelevance”.
“We were looking at a massive, missed opportunity where TAMS was approving only a tiny number of solar applications due to budgetary constraints, leaving many farmers who were ready-to-commit without any source of funding. ICMSA looked at the SEAI options and we have been actively encouraging interested farmers to consider the SEAI nondomestic solar grant. It is do-able and SEAI are highly professional and expert, but there is an identifiable deficit in their package that needs to be addressed,” Mr. O’Brien said.
"TAMS offered farmers grant aid for both solar panels and battery storage at a 60% grant rate. The SEAI scheme offers neither battery storage nor a comparable grant rate. That needs to change. At the very minimum, the SEAI should provide grant aid for battery storage systems with sufficient capacity to power morning and evening milkings. Just giving farmers the ability to generate, store and use their own electricity and reduce their reliance on the grid, would be a huge benefit to the industry”, said the ICMSA Committee Chairperson.
Noting that farm electricity demand often coincides with periods of peak electricity usage, Mr O’Brien said Government has a straightforward choice to make: "The Government can spend millions on upgrading grid infrastructure to cope with increasing peak demand, or it can incentivise on-farm battery storage through the SEAI scheme and improved grant rates so farmers can generate, store and use their own solar electricity. On any coherent cost-benefit analysis, it’s a ‘no-brainer’ and must see SEAI supporting farmers to install battery storage that benefits everyone. It helps the environment, reduces pressure on the electricity grid and avoids unnecessary expenditure on expanding peak grid capacity. It's a practical investment that delivers for farmers, taxpayers and the climate."
Observing that farmers want to reduce their emissions and become more energy efficient, Mr O’Brien said that the 2030 Emissions Targets were looming up and now was the time to ‘spend a little that would save a lot’.
“Farmers have been sold on the wisdom of solar by now, they know it ticks all the boxes. That’s not the problem; the problem is that dairy and beef prices are low to the point of collapse and they (farmers) just don’t have the money. Everywhere you go you hear farmers extolling the economic and environmental sense of ‘Bottling the Sun’, but they will tell you that they are at the ‘pin of their collar’ and every single cent of grant aid might make the difference. ICMSA firmly believes that if SEAI were to grant aid battery storage in their package, it would make decide the matter for a significant number of farmers who want to be able to use their own energy for morning and evening milkings and would be willing to find their end of the costs based on that battery inclusion”, he said.
Concluding, Mr O’Brien said this was a clear-cut case where a relatively small ‘tweak’ could bring enormous benefits in economic, environmental and sustainability terms.
“This is as obvious a case as we have ever seen where just going a small bit further would bring disproportionate benefits across a range of headings”.
