At the European level, the general aim of the European Commission’s energy policy is to achieve carbon-neutrality by 2050. The energy sector is responsible for more than 75% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions which makes increasing the share of renewable energy a crucial element of achieving this goal in the future.
Ireland has huge potential to harness renewable energy sources, particularly wind and wave energy. But Irelands performance to date with respect to overall renewable energy share has not been promising. In 2020, they missed the target of 16% of gross final energy consumption from renewable sources. The actual share of 13.5% meant that Ireland had to acquire transfers of renewable energy from other European member states to compensate for the shortfall.
Ireland’s renewable energy share goal for 2030 is just over 34%. Up to now, wind energy has been the most significant source of renewable energy in Ireland. The potential of wave energy is massive and it alone could provide up to 75% of Ireland’s elecricity needs. The main issue is how best to grow the offshore renewable energy sector in Ireland.
New research shows that there are significant strengths within the sector, but there are also many challenges impeding its scalability. The firms are mostly young microbusinesses with a highly educated workforce. Most of the firms are involved in the earlier developmental stages including the Research and Development and Demonstration phases of the technology readiness level.
Strong industry-university relations are evident, but these are not without their challenges. Misaligned incentives between industry and university and rigid academic semesters limit the influence of the collaboration.
Firms engaged in the sector reported many hurdles to entering and growing in the sector. Top among these is the lack of engagement, support and financial subsidies from Governement.
Other significant barriers to entry include the substantial startup costs and difficulty accessing finance from traditional sources such as banks. This could be because of the fact that many of the businesses are at the early stages of development and thus may not have established a successful commercial track record in the industry.