Schools rooftop revolution now ‘a rooftop f lop’
Not one solar panel put in place since new scheme launched
A HIGH-PROFILE plan by two Cabinet ministers to instal solar panels on the nation’s schools has failed to place a single panel since the scheme was launched amid much fanfare more than a year ago.
Launching the scheme in September last year, Green Party leader and Environment Minister Eamon Ryan declared the plan to make all school buildings energy self-sufficient was part of Ireland’s ‘rooftop revolution’. But fast forward 13 months and not a single rooftop or solar PV panel has been placed.
Mr Ryan – who launched the scheme with Education Minister Norma Foley – boldly predicted the initiative would help cut schools’ future energy bills at a time when electricity bills were soaring.
He even suggested that schools could earn money by providing excess power to the national grid at weekends and during holidays.
Delivering Budget 2024 last week, Finance Minister Michael McGrath appeared to re-announce the scheme, when he confirmed that the reduction of VAT rates on the supply and installation of solar panels for private dwellings would be extended to schools, with effect from next January.
Under the scheme, it was envisaged grants of up to €2,400 could be provided for the installation of solar panels on premises.
This matches the maximum grant currently available to householders for domestic solar panels. Applicants eligible for the scheme could install up to a maximum of 6kWp of solar PV panels, or around 16 panels covering 25 square metres.
Mr Ryan’s department estimated panels could save €3,000 a year in electricity bills based on current prices.
However, TDs and Senator were left
surprised when a senior Department of Education official told a recent meeting of the Oireachtas Education Committee that work has yet to even begin on the scheme. In response to a
request for a progress update from Fine Gael Senator Aisling Dolan, Hubert Loftus, Assistant Secretary to the Building and Planning Unit, replied: ‘We have had a good deal of engagement with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications in regard to the practicalities around this issue.’
But he confirmed that, 13 months after the original announcement being made, ‘mechanics around’ the scheme meant some details are still being ‘worked through’.
When pressed on when the scheme will actually begin, the civil servant replied: ‘No doubt our ministers will work through the detail of that and will make an announcement in due course.’
Despite the lack of progress, Mr Loftus told the committee: ‘We are certainly conscious of getting that rolled out. Working that through will be a multi-annual programme. It is an important measure and part of our climate agenda.’ However, the lack of progress was criticised by some committee members, including Green Party chair, Senator Pauline O’Reilly, who said: ‘As I understand it, the department has come up with complicated reasons for why it cannot do that. Many of us have solar panels; it is not that complicated.
‘The department has the people to do the work and it has the money. I fail to see why it cannot just get on with the job. I know I sound frustrated, but we are in the middle of a climate emergency.
‘There is money there and people to do the work, but it is not being done and I do not understand why not.’
The absence of progress on Mr
Ryan’s ‘rooftop revolution’ was later confirmed by the minister in response to a parliamentary question from Sinn Féin TD Darren O’Rourke, in which Mr Ryan said: ‘My department is continuing to work with the Department of Education to develop the scheme.’
Commenting on the stalled scheme, Social Democrats climate spokeswoman Jennifer Whitmore told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘The minister’s rooftop revolution has turned into a rooftop flop.’
‘With the best will in the world, installing solar panels on a school is not rocket science. Individual
‘Excess power provided to the national grid’
‘Panels could save €3,000 a year on bills’
homeowners all over the country have done it successfully.’
In response to queries from the MoS, a spokesperson for Minister Ryan said: ‘The solar PV programme for schools is a collaboration between the Department of Education and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications.
‘It will be funded from the Climate Action Fund. There has been a rigorous process of due diligence and development work in accordance with the terms of the Fund; this is now almost complete.’
The spokesperson added that ‘Phase 1’ of the programme will be rolled out this year, and that the ‘exact mechanism of the roll-out will be published shortly’.