The land area of Ireland is 6.9m hectares, of which 4.4m hectares are used for agriculture and 0.73m hectares for forestry. Of the agricultural area, 0.56m hectares are bound by EU nature directives.

Designated land and alternative use

These EU nature directives, the Habitats Directive and the Birds Directive, ensure the protection of habitats and species which have been selected for conservation within Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) and Special Protection Areas (SPAs).

There are 439 SACs, 154 SPAs and 148 NHAs (national designations). These make up 13.66% (942,540ha) of the land area of the State, of which 564,000ha are farmed. It has been estimated that there are about 35,000 landowners with lands fully or partly in SACs and SPAs. The Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Josepha Madigan (at the time of print) has stated that there are currently no further plans to propose additional sites for designation. An owner or occupier of land within a European site who disposes of any interest in relation to the land, including rights, to any person, must notify that person in writing, prior to or on disposing of the interest, that the site is a European site and indicate any activities requiring consent or other restrictions that apply to the site.

Options to use designated sites for any purpose of generating energy is minimal at present. In hen harrier areas, where land is very suitable for forestry, a ban on planting has been in place since 2010. Wind farms have been banned in such areas also.

“The long-promised National Parks and Wildlife Scheme (NPWS) threat response plan for hen harrier areas must be finalised. This would allow certain renewable developments to take place. Otherwise, proper compensation schemes will have to be put in place to deal with the loss of potential development and the devaluation of land,” according to IFA rural development executive Gerry Gunning.

The solar solution?

Planning permission for solar farms covering 6,575ac (2,660ha) of mostly farmland across the country has been granted in the last three years as reported this year in the Irish Farmers Journal. Just over 3,000ac (1,214ha) of land was sought and approved for solar farm development in 2019 alone. The four biggest solar farms in the country that have secured planning are in Wexford (152.8ha and 89.46ha), Meath (150.29ha) and Kerry (99.2ha).

Wexford is the county with the most planning permissions granted in the last three years, with 1,682ac (681ha) given the go-ahead since 2017. Demand in Cork is also strong, with 907ac (367.21ha) granted planning in the same period.

As the south and southeast have the highest solar generation potential, it is unsurprising that Connacht and Ulster had virtually no sites being sought for solar development in the region.

With projects in excess of 300ac favoured by Government, IFA renewables chair Tom Shortt is concerned that smaller farm-scale projects will lose out. The Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) won’t suit small-scale projects such as a farmer producing his own electricity and selling excess back to the grid. In order to make this possible for farmers, a microgeneration scheme is needed.

Micro Renewable Energy Federation chair Pat Smith told the Irish Farmers Journal the holdup in solar farms being built was mainly as a result of the RESS being delayed.

Smith said once the auction is up and running and solar photovoltaic (PV) development projects are successful in accessing it, then construction of solar farms will begin before the end of 2020.

Biomethane

For medium- to large-scale co-operative-style agriculture-based biomethane plants, the feedstock would include grass and slurry supplied by farmers, rather than developing the facilities themselves.

This model is currently not economically viable in Ireland as the cost of production of biogas is significantly greater than the current price for fossil gas on the gas grid. The Irish biogas plants currently in operation are benefiting from an old REFIT scheme, which is no longer available. This scheme supported their operations to convert biomethane into electricity and heat through a CHP generator.

Details of a new Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) were recently announced. This support scheme will be technology-neutral. However, the production of solar and wind energy is less expensive than biogas, which will make biogas uncompetitive in the proposed auction system under the current draft terms and conditions of RESS.

“As biogas is a renewable energy source that can be continuously generated when the sun does not shine or the wind does not blow, [it] is ideally placed to enhance the electricity grid by ensuring continuous supply and stability to the grid,” Seán Finan, CEO of the Irish Bioenergy Association (IrBEA) said.

Renewable heat targets

The Support Scheme for Renewable Heat (SSRH) is currently operational since the middle of last year. When the Government announced the SSRH it was stated that it would have a €300m budget over a 15-year period.

“This scheme offers significant potential to decarbonise heat use in the agricultural, industrial, commercial sectors and drive demand for indigenous supplies of biomass,” Finan said.

“For the purpose of calculating the quantity of land needed to produce biomass to maximise the value of this scheme [the IrBEA] are estimating that heat users would receive an average payment of €25,000 per year from the SSRH.

“This is paid to heat users (pig farmers, poultry farmers and mushroom growers) by SEAI through the SSRH to replace fossil fuel (gas or oil) in their operations and move to a biomass heating system. Over the 15-year lifetime of the scheme, this would equate to a return of €375,000 not taking into consideration the savings achieved when purchasing biomass compared to fossil fuels.”

The expected total budget of €300m will therefore fund approximately 800 projects.

COFORD projections suggest that Ireland will see significant increases in the annual harvest of wood over the next decade in line with planting investment by the state in the 1990s.

From an agricultural perspective, if the biomass volumes required were fed using short rotation coppice crops, such as, wood chip from willow, approximately 12,00ha of this crop would be needed.

“To put this in context, this would meet approximately 1% of the entire heat demand in Ireland. The total Irish heat demand is approximately 4.7m tonnes of oil equivalent. Therefore, there is massive potential to replace fossil fuels with biomass for heating at domestic and non-domestic level,” Finan concluded.