 Right, good afternoon, everybody. As you take your seats, everybody's very welcome. My name is Alex White. I'm Director General of the Institute of International European Affairs and we're really pleased to be hosting this event this afternoon with Gas Networks Ireland. Great to be working with GNI again. I know we have in the past and delighted to be able to do that again this afternoon and thanks for all of the work and cooperation that your team has had with our team in preparing this event which I have no doubt is going to be a really successful, really interesting and important one. We're at a critical moment although I think practically every time you introduce an event like this in respect of climate and energy decarbonisation you can fairly say that we're at a critical moment. We're always at a critical moment in this agenda but there's so much happening. I think that events, debate and discussion, the sharing of information, evidence-based information is so critical to deepening the public debate that we need to have. I do admire GNI for, of course, not just doing their core work which is what you're there to do but also being willing to encourage and foster debate and discussion about many of these issues particularly for example in the area of hydrogen decarbonisation in the gas sector and to see what can be done to contribute to the big project that we have in this country and indeed in all the countries across the world in the broader context of climate change. So thank you very much everybody for being here. I do see at least one member of the diplomatic corps but the ambassador of New Zealand is very welcome. There may be others here. It's always a danger to particularly in the context of members of the diplomatic corps who are kind enough to come to our events that I might miss one so if you're here and I don't see you you're also welcome but everybody's welcome and as I know our chair will encourage you to participate when the time comes. But what I'd like to do now before we hand it over to our chair Katrina Devereaux and thank you Katrina for agreeing to to chair this event. Katrina as you know is a science commentator and a broadcaster, a freelance producer. We're delighted to have her here but before Katrina takes over I'd like delighted to introduce and to welcome Edwina Nyann from Gas Networks Ireland to address you briefly. Thank you. Thank you Alex. Good afternoon everybody and look it's lovely to see some familiar faces and some new faces in the audience to enable us to tell you a little bit more about the journey we're going on to decarbonise the Gas Network. Look we think tonight's debate is a really important one and we've some really interesting speakers on the panel tonight and look we see our role as decarbonising the Gas Network as pivotal to achieving net zero and it's also really important in terms of enhancing and diversifying security supply for the country. So look all I'd like to say is we hope and you enjoy this discussion this evening and you learn something new about the Gas Network and the journey that we're on and I might hand over to Katrina now and without further ado to to introduce you to the panel. So much for you doing this. Big round of applause please for Edwina and Alex. So Foulta Rivcock I'm delighted to welcome you all and it's great to see so many in attendance and it is an important and timely discussion the decarbonisation of Ireland's Gas Network. As Alex said my name is Katrina Devereaux I'm a broadcaster in science communicator and I've been telling stories about Ireland's renewable energy journey for over 20 years which is slightly where I increase myself we're saying when we start saying over 20 years. You might see me on occasion presenting Ortiz and things to know about but it is a story that we've been trying to tell for a while and the discussions are very important and needed so I'm really honoured to be guiding proceedings this afternoon and you all know and you don't need me to tell you that you know the transition towards a low carbon future is not just an aspiration but an necessity and the IIEA are all about sharing ideas and shaping policy so today we're really hoping for a fruitful discussion about what it will take to build an indigenous biomethane industry and create that net zero gas network of the future and this event has been organised with the support of GNI and we're really pleased that we have such an esteemed panel of experts joining us to take part in these discussions and they're all dedicated to shaping you know a cleaner energy future so thank you so much for coming. Maybe reserve your applause for the end otherwise you'd be worn out from cheering for them but we have Christian Forholt from who's a project manager with EnergiNet in Denmark, Triso Flynn a partner at ARA partners, JJ Linton building officer at Chagos, Kweeva Giblin commercial director at ElectroRoot and David Kelly director of customer and business development at Gas Networks so I don't know you're all very very welcome. Be grand boss. So just light housekeeping again put your phone on silent and our speakers are just going to kind of maybe give us their introductory thoughts for a couple of minutes and then we might we'll go straight into the Q&A session after that for those of you in the room you can pose your questions in the traditional raise your hand method and anyone online can use the Q&A function on Zoom and you know feel free to send in your question throughout the discussion if you're online and we'll get to them once the panelists have shared their initial thoughts and please do give us your name and affiliation when you're posing your question and I do really encourage you to actively participate in this conversation because you know we're at this kind of crucial moment of developing this strategy and this blueprint for the future and everybody's insights and perspectives are really invaluable so let's get the most out of this event. If you are sharing anything on Twitter please use the handle at IIEA and all of this has been recorded so you know be careful. So our first speaker is Christian Vorholt from EnergiNet. He is a project manager for the annual report of security of supply in the Danish gas system. He's also EnergiNet's associated activities country lead for projects in India, Vietnam and Poland and a project manager for EnergiNet's long-term development plan for the Danish gas and electricity systems. He has a degree in international relations and a specializing climate diplomacy and has a lot of knowledge about how to integrate biomethane into national energy systems so Christian with all of that long very worthwhile introduction and what are your thoughts in terms of the Danish experience and maybe how some of that can apply to the Irish experience. Right, so first of all thank you so much for having me and congratulations on your biomethane strategy in Ireland. I think it's a huge step in the right direction and it's funny when I started working with Padre, David, Karen and all the great people from GNI a few years ago there wasn't much in my perspective at least a lot of aptitude towards biomethane development besides the people in GNI so I really think GNI deserves a kudos and credit for the development and to where you are now in Ireland and that's great. I hope also that this will mean further cooperation between Denmark and Ireland in issues related to biomethane whether that will be on a political level or between TSOs or for commercial entities that's what I hope. So it's positive to see that the landscape is sort of changing and when I read the strategy I didn't read it in detail but I saw that the ambition was going to get to 5.0 terawatt hours by 2030 which is not insignificant. I think it's kind of ambitious and as I mentioned it's a good step in the right direction. Ireland has a huge potential for biomethane probably relative to its size one of the largest throughout Europe and in terms of there are so many similarities between Denmark and Ireland both in terms of size, population area but also but also strong agricultural history and agriculture sector in both countries. We also both of our countries seem to always lose to England and football so where there's that not in rugby no yeah not in rugby we don't play rugby so but Denmark last year in 2023 we got to 40 percent gas consumption coming from biomethane and that's you know due to a combination of factors first of all over the last 20 years our gas consumption has been declining significantly but also we've seen the development of biomethane we've seen the development of more facilities being connected to the to the gas grid I think right now we're probably around 60 facilities in total and by this year we're going to get to even more because we'll have a new subsidy scheme taken into place by Q2, Q3 hopefully and that's really what has been driving the development in Denmark is the political ambition having subsidy schemes and having support for both for producers but also for creating an environment where farmers and developers are inclined and have incentives to to engage in and develop biomethane. Thank you Christian and we come to Trisa next Trisa is a partner, sorry it's a bit smaller room we don't have very neat but first. So Flynn is a partner at ARA partners a private equity firm that invests in companies that are decarbonizing the economy she co-leads their infrastructure strategy and has more than 20 years of sustainable investing experience with extensive renewable power energy infrastructure experience both in the fund management sector and at the operating company level. Trisa joined BlackRock in 2011 as a founding member of its global renewable power infrastructure business and in 2019 she became global head of sustainable investing for BlackRock's alternative investment platform and prior to joining BlackRock Trisa worked for NTO a private infrastructure developer across several of the groups European and US wind development subsidiaries. So Trisa you clearly have been working and watching the renewable energy sector for a while and what's your point what's what's your perspective from kind of an investment point of view? Absolutely so my entire career up to the last few years has been dedicated to the electron and a lot of folks here I'm sure have you know grown up in the wind energy sector here in Ireland and it's you know been a booming space for many many years and Ireland's wind energy professionals are working globally leading the wind power space but one thing to kind of note that the the world of industry which is what our partners is focused on the world of made things it accounts for about 60 percent of global emissions and it has attracted less than 10 percent of the climate focused capital. The big area of decarbonizing the molecule has been completely overlooked so I think there's a huge opportunity for Ireland to take everything that we've done and can be incredibly proud of in relation to wind energy and now deploy that decarbonizing the molecule. It's interesting in the gas network's paper on bio methane I'm just going to quote this because I think it's pretty powerful in 2022 the gas network in Ireland transported twice the amount of molecules as the grid did electrons and think about all the attention that the electron space gets we will absolutely not get to net zero unless we tackle the world of made things including molecules so from an investment perspective quite frankly it's a historic investment opportunity and the type of capital that we manage it's typically pension funds and insurance companies and increasingly these investors as custodians of capital for folks who want to you know retire with dignity or you know paying insurance premiums if if there's a an insurance claim they need to have capital aligned with sustainability or climate oriented strategies because at the end of the day climate risk is investment risk so you want to be exposed to the opportunity created by investing in sustainable strategies and across financial markets the fastest growing allocation are strategies oriented towards sustainability so then bringing that back to the investment opportunity in Ireland and I think some of the stats that you mentioned are quite significant Ireland is in poll position to be a leader when it comes to creating the new asset class of bio methane the the and one that I think will you know completely take over from the wind sector we still need electricity made from green energy from wind and solar but back to my earlier statistic you know the world of made things including molecules accounts for 60 percent of emissions and it has attracted less than 10 percent of the climate focus capital that absolutely is a huge mismatch and it can continue so from an our partner's perspective we are looking for investment opportunity in Ireland we want to invest in you know developers who are developing bio methane projects we're looking at many markets across Europe and the US as well but I would say the opportunity here in Ireland is is quite significant and we're highly focused on it it's really interesting it seems that we could be the world leaders in lots of things we could be the world leaders in offshore wind we could be the world leaders in bio methane we just need to be doing it and JJ I might come to you next JJ Lenehan is the building officer with Chagos and together with two of his colleagues he looks after the technical property related issues at 55 locations of Chagos across the country he's an engineer by profession with a special interest in energy use and in Chagos where the built environment accounts for the largest proportion of energy consumed at over 80 percent of the total so JJ from you know you've got your own bio methane production plant almost up and running but do you want to give us a sense of where you see how you see Ireland building its bio methane infrastructure yes thank you just to start natural gas is going to be an important fuel for heat electricity and more recently transport going forward an Ireland has above average use of natural gas compared to our european partners and part of that is a lot of our electricity comes from natural gas as there is increasing targets for renewable fuels to be able to replace natural gas by methane as obviously you know there should be a receptive audience out there Chagos research over the last few years has shown the potential to produce suitable feedstocks for the industry and the research was started by Parri Kokaili who was the principal silage researcher in Chagos and he was looking at alternative uses for grass the country can produce more grass than we need at the moment and there's obviously what was restrictions on the herd size with with quotas and one of the potential outlets for grass was as an AD feedstock and SEI reports have since confirmed that potential animal stories are an attractive component of the resource mix but forage crops are really the standout opportunity and forage crops the typical forage crop or main forage crop would be perennial ryegrass but more recently red clover had been forgotten about in the country when cheat nitrogen became available but red clover as a legume that can fix nitrogen we see as a very important resource to produce forages for AD you have to confirm to renewable energy directive and producing forages without nitrogen is part of the answer we're predominantly grassland in Ireland 90% which is not typical in Europe why it rains throughout the year we have mild winters and it never gets too hot in the summer so we can produce good quantities of grass but while on a dairy farm you will be producing 10 tons per hectare of dry matter because there's an incentive to have you know to produce milk from the cow the typical dry matter output is 6 tons per hectare and you know on sheep and cattle farms that's probably the average production at Grange we're producing 12 tons of dry matter per hectare from red clover so you can see the potential there to produce more forages and I call that the opportunity of the hidden hectares the target of 5.7 terawatt hours from 2030 is ambitious but the feedstock is potentially there if we were to dedicate land fully to produce the feedstock you're talking about 120,000 hectares and this equates to only 3% of agricultural land and if you look at producing some of that on the hidden hectares you don't have to take all you know you don't even have to go to 3% to produce the 5.7 terawatt hour target of course you'll be using manures and other wastes to compliment that what is also interesting if the country has to ultimately reduce ruminant numbers to reach targets it's a fairly easy change for farmers to produce the crop the feedstocks the type of crop that they're used to producing just to go to another market but it is important that it's economically you know suitable or economically attractive because farmers react obviously to that stimulus we had a grass drying industry in the country which we had a very substantial grass drying industry based on large units 400 hectares of grassland and the output was a protein feed supplement for pigs and poultry that industry ultimately fell by the wayside because soybean meal came came available from the US and South America and oil was the fuel used in Ireland to dry the grass and in the 70s that you know the economics just went south if you like um but the experience would show that for 25 years grass was assembled at scale on on you know in the across the country those were dotted around the country so I have no doubt but if the price is right farmers will will stand up to the to the market and produce the material and just another interesting just going back a little bit further in history we talk about 120,000 hectares needed to produce the forages that was dedicated land that we weren't looking at trying to produce more on existing land in 1850 there were 600,000 hectares of oats grown in the country and we had 600,000 horses um so you know they were providing the more power of the day so you had land dedicated 600,000 hectares dedicated to to energy we only have 20,000 hectares of oats today in the country and if we if we just take a situation where maybe 25 percent of the forages would come from hidden hectares in other words boosting the output on existing grassland um we're only looking at uh targeting 15 percent of the land base that was dedicated to energy production in 1850 and we'd actually producing about one and a half times the energy as by a methane that we that we were in 1850 and at the moment production processes of enterprise are encouraged to operate on a on a circular economy basis and ad is an ideal example of implementing that approach animal waste are treated by the process to reduce emissions of methane and to provide energy in a biofinery reproach products like protein can be extracted uh from forages before the material is used as as an ad feedstock and biogenic co2 can be harvested as part of the the biogas to buy a methane upgrading process and finally the digested is a bio fertilizer and all those you know all those uh um products would be very important to uh to to try to make it uh to try to get the economics right because that's always going to be a challenge gas will be you know natural gas will be cheaper and unless there's you know uh stimulus put in there because of the carbon benefits of biome methane or the other uh the other products that that's the other co-products that are in the system uh they'll all be important to make the economics correct JJ that's really interesting I like this idea of kind of looking back to the court and also in terms of security of supply and all those kind of things as well but we'll dig into all of that later um Quiva I might come to you now um Quiva Giblin is a member of electric routes senior manager team and leads their commercial origination and trading operations team um she's worked in the energy sector for over 15 years and sits on the council of wind energy Ireland she was formerly director of finance at sse renewables where she had responsibility for the financial activities of sse's extensive on and off offshore wind development and construction portfolio she's a court qualified chartered accountant with a degree and masters in accountancy and spent six years working with kpmg in Dublin and New Zealand um so Quiva do you want to tell us a little bit about the work that's kind of happening right now kind of thing first thanks very much Katrina lovely to to be here today and as Katrina mentioned I work for a company called electro route we're an energy trading company based here in Dublin we have a very very much focus on the renewable sector providing a variety of different trading services to renewable energy assets whether that's on the power side or the gas side and some of our clients come from one of asset owners who own renewable projects and are looking for offtake solutions and risk management solutions for their projects and other clients we have are on the corporate side who are looking to procure clean green energy to decarbonize their own energy consumption I'd just tell you a little bit about the company it was founded 13 years ago here in Dublin and a lot of the a lot of the founders worked in the utility space and they saw the opportunity to create a utility style trading function to focus on the the the growing need for that type of service in the renewable sector the company was originally you know Irish owned and about five years ago Mitsubishi Corporation invested in the company so we're subsidiary now of Mitsubishi Corporation we tried across about 15 different markets here in Europe and we have a growing business as well in Japan our purpose as a company is to make net zero a reality and you know for us we're really passionate about the the drive to decarbonize the the Irish economy as well as kind of all all we can do around all the different markets we operate in I laughed when you said I was over 15 years I think I need to update my biography because unfortunately it's at least 20 now and like you were saying over 20 years in the renewable space and like Theresa my focus initially was on the wind side like Theresa I worked in electricity from the early 2000s when the company when that company was really kind of pushing the boundaries about what was achievable in in the wind sector here in Ireland a little bit like the biomethane industry the you know the industry was very immature like biomethane there was only a handful of actual real projects and active in the market and there was really ambitious people in the sector but a huge amount to do to get to the point we're at today but it was done you know the pioneers in the sector really pushed and mobilized to deliver what we've seen on the wind sector you know your today I think it's about 36 percent of the power demand in the country has been has been satisfied by renewables so you know it's every reason the same can be done on the on the green gas and the renewable gas side and kind of on reflection I guess there's some big differences between the wind sector 20 years ago and the biomethane sector today I think firstly we've seen what other countries can do you know it's really impressive to hear what Christian said about the Danish experience how they've managed to achieve 40 green gas in their network and the other big difference is the targets that have been set by government if the government has set yeah really really ambitious targets the 5.7 terawatt hours that's been mentioned and I think you know in the for the rest of this decade that acts as a effectively a north star for the policy makers for the asset owners and investors like Trisa and our partners for the lenders the funders for companies like us as service providers and traders it provides that I guess catalyst for for mobilizing to really deliver and drive this sector this industry I thought it might be useful just to touch on a interesting transaction in the space we worked on last year at electro route we worked with a large international transport company who was looking at how to decarbonize their road transport activities here in the irish market they had invested in a number of um renewable fuel haulage trucks and they came to us so you know in the medium term they'd love to be able to procure and the intent to procure indigenous irish by methane but that supply wasn't there today so we worked with them on an innovative solution to import green gas from continental europe across a number of different international borders and bring it into the irish market in order to fuel their their trucks we worked very closely with the with the gni team and regulatory authorities across all the different regions of this gas transported and you know I guess for us that's not the long term goal for us why we were really excited about this transaction was that it demonstrated a real demand on the island of ireland for green gas and it shows that you know with with the right conditions we can deliver um that green gas because it is needed there is that demand here um I guess you know the the policy the the targets of 5.7 terawatt hours they're you know it's very ambitious we're halfway through the the decade already and we still haven't seen the um the obligation details there's no clarity and exactly what what structures we put in place by the state to support and encourage this investment I think corporates will have a big part to play and we're seeing companies like this transport company and other big energy users like data centers pharmaceutical companies looking for uh looking for sources of green gas so you know I think that demand is there but really it needs a lot more joins up thinking by all the policy makers to really really get the the economy and the by methane economy going thanks so much Grave joined up thinking I think they need to teach that in school or something we need a bit more of that and David we'll come to you last but by no means least and David Kelly is the director of customer and business development at GNI and David has over 20 years of executive level experience in both the private and public sectors and prior to his current role he was the group head of customer operations and public affairs for or via and David you want to kind of come in about what GNI has been working on since after hearing everybody else's reflections yeah and look just to say really thank you to everybody this year in person but also to those of you that are connecting virtually you're very welcome as well um I'll be brief um just very just two things I want to say if I can um firstly about the role of gas today and you alluded to earlier Teresa uh like gas is really critical to Ireland's economy today and that's going to continue into the medium and long term um to put it in context there's an awful lot of noise about gas and domestic use 65 percent of the gas we use today in the republic has used in power generation um just one of 30 percent of the gas we use today is in commercial enterprise so so there's a very small percentage used in domestic use but it's still 40 percent of heating so it's a really really important vector today and right now we're largely 80 percent dependent on the UK uh for for that gas for that commodity so we have a problem and the fields the indigenous gas fields Corob has probably less than 10 years of of of life expectancy um if you can use that term with the gas field of mind so having a source of indigenous secure gas that's this side of the pond is really important for us so bio methane is is is potentially a very very good replacement for any other indigenous gas that that may fall off in time um as Christian said we've been looking at this for a number of years um uh and what is heartening to see frankly is the level of interest and demand from the market despite the policy and what i mean by that is that i'm not in any way trying to to cast shade on our policy makers but it's been a long time coming um so what's happening now and what we're seeing now around bio methane is that entities are getting ahead of the policy they're engaging they're contracting they're building there's big foreign investment coming into the market now um and it's almost despite the fact that we're still debating and discussing where the bio methane should be used which is good and it's not good um so what i'll say is that G and I uh we're very keen to see the advent of a really buoyant renewable gas sector in Ireland frankly because it's our vision and purpose to convert what we do today which is transport natural gas to renewable and ideally zero carbon gases we've done that before by the way so so you may not be aware but but G and I is 50 years old actually next year and we transported town gas right up into the mid 80s um gas derived from coal and there was a huge conversion program that took place in the 80s a lot of the guys and girls that were involved in that by the way are still in the company which is interesting um but we need to now convert from natural gas to bio methane and ultimately hydrogen and that's something that's really really important to our company so i'll leave it at that and for the well do you want to follow up with that and tell us what do you think are the main obstacles to that what what are the big hurdles that you see ahead of you well for bio methane there are no obstacles there are no hurdles today to inject it and we're injecting tiny amounts today we injected 70 gigawatts of bio methane into the grid last year which you know in the context of 57 terawatts it's it's very very small so so you know is there any reason why we couldn't get to 5.7 terawatts by 2030 with what's in place today no there isn't actually and if i look at the four entities that have contracted now to connect ad plans directly into the grid and and they're under construction right now they're getting ahead they're they're moving on there's players and i'll call out one i don't mean to plug anybody but i'll call out one who was in the media last week nephan energy they've established nephan renewable gas it's it's headquartered in tip it was opened by the minister for enterprise simon coveney last week they're building 30 plants they've six going into planning this month and that is canadian pension fund investment it's half a billion euro investment in a sector that doesn't exist really in ireland today of note so that's really heartening and that's why i'm optimistic when you see players like that and there's others there's lots of other players that are that are experiencing other jurisdictions starting to invest in the country we want to support them we want to work with them and then ultimately we want to try and bring the farming community and the agriculture community and the waste community along with us because we're all i guess learning on the job to somewhat and we're learning from the likes of christian and and what what uh then Denmark are the rock stars in this sector what they've achieved in the last 10 years is frankly remarkable and every time you read it it was like 30 percent 34 percent 40 percent today i was like would you just slow down so we can catch up with you um does anybody want to come back on anything that you've heard from the other speakers there i have a good few questions but you might want to reflect on some things for some of both jg and david said in terms of security of supply because we face sort of the same issue in denmark with only having a two entry points basically for for our gas and you know consumption and that's really where biogas or biomethane plays a huge role because more entry points means better security of supply so i know because you kind of weep here in quivers saying you have to ship biogas from europe and all the hoops you have to jump through to do that when you know we have to look here underground absolutely and you know it's clear there is that potential from statistics that jg shared and you know it's untapped at the moment and and i think a big push you know is needed across across the industry from everyone in this room and policy makers to make that happen just comment i would make because there's been a lot of you know comparison to you know everybody there's a lot of people very proud about you know the wind energy heritage here in ireland and and genuinely punching above our weight on a global scale and then as a result the opportunity uh for our irish biomethane i would say from an investment perspective the technology itself is proven ad proven it is proven but the actual you know operations of the plants themselves they are more complex to your wind energy project wind energy and solar energy resources fee is free here feedstock is absolutely critical how you you know procure that feedstock is absolutely essential and the security around that and i think there's a lot of lessons learned that we can take uh from from then mark in that regard i heard someone describe biomethane as a mechanical cow and i think it's a really good way to think about it you have to be really careful about the feedstock composition and what goes into your mechanical cow because it can really vary and impact your gas yield so the variables in a biomethane investment uh project many more variables than what we had traditionally in your wind and solar space that's not a bad thing necessarily i think what is really important though is you know making sure that you're working with experienced partners who've been through that journey before because at the end of the day you know ultimately the investors are looking for solid returns they want to see contracted cash flows uh what you're basically seeing is the corporates um some of the folks that electrolyte have worked with they're in the absence of fixed feed and tariffs and you know etc etc they're procuring the gas directly on long-term contracts because they see it as existential to their business model as in we need to have a secure source of gas and it needs to be green because if not um you know what's the alternative there may be carbon penalties etc so there's a lot more variables and i think as ireland develops its biomethane industry with a huge advantage given our feedstock position just making sure that we think through that working with experienced partners to accelerate and not learn the lessons that others have learned 10 or so years ago i could certainly a comment that i would make yeah i know instead of bemoaning the fact that we're late to the party let's just learn from all the mistakes that let's let's catch up in one pass because we have a huge advantage here um well actually a question that kind of is around the economics of the biomethane um it's from john fisterl co-chair of the eye economists um for example how much would it cost in terms of tons of carbon dioxide avoided and how much carbon dioxide would it displace if the target was reached by 2030 does anyone have those numbers to their top of their head yeah john for sure it had to ask that didn't it it's about the tons yeah we'll have to revert to them with the specifics on it because it varies it depends on where the the source of the the the feedstock is coming from will determine the level of carbon offset that there is um so yeah that's probably the best which is quite that old i wouldn't dare give a give a firm answer to an economist on that and is that part of the kind of hesitancy is just those kind of unintended consequences or you know um use land use or resources not being used in the in the most efficient manner you know that we don't do it efficiently actually well i guess it triggered a comment in my mind which is i think you know you know hats off to gas network arland in this regard because they're connected into danmark they're bringing folks to germany there's a real desire i can certainly see it from a g and i perspective to make sure that as this industry gets off the ground it's connected into the folks who are ahead so that we can learn as much as possible i think in relation to some of those comments that you made data and collecting it is really important i mean a couple of weeks ago we were visiting a biogas site in belgium and you open they have the fridge and they have like the samples of all of the various different feedstock that come in on this date they need to keep it for six months so that they actually can verify where it came from what it is because actually all of that data on the ingredients really determine the price that you're going to get paid at the end of the day and because if it's bio methane from manure relative to bio methane from food waste the price that someone's going to pay for that is actually going to be different so there are a huge amount of you know need for proper process and procedure around tracking every ingredient that goes into that mechanical cow um we have another question from david maxwell um future biogas ireland is a lot of promise for bio methane from grasses do you think this could be combined with carbon capture to create net negative gas do i do that might be for you is that um yeah i mean carbon capture it's not an area that i'm you know i have much knowledge on but there's obviously technologies there but the the real issue with uh grass is that if if the forages and i mentioned red clover if you're producing the forages without any artificial nitrogen basically you know you're in carbon neutral territory and actually as long as we're purchasing um conventional fertilizer as long as the ireland we don't have any manufacturing facilities anymore but as long as we're importing conventional fertilizer the ability to use the the digesting as a bio fertilizer replacement again has positive benefits to the to the overall overall carbon balance um i might open it to the people in the room do you have a question do will you stand up and give us um in your best voice please because we don't have a role in mind no we don't have a role in my community and i'll i'll relay it down to the back of the room thank you so much so i'm front of back tomorrow and i co-chair the cloud of energy group here at the institute of my day job i work in baby investment bank and my question is really well in the sector and whatever whatever and if i'm when it would take off because we've got the finance question we've got the feedstock question the off day the gas transportation system and of course the policy question and we uh repower au has a 35 bcm garden which is 10 the factor of 10 times we've got the 5.7 target here which translates to something like 150 to 200 plants and stop it standing there welcome without them from there i'm just wondering are all the ingredients technology feedstock off take gas and policy ready for this sector to take off in our hands thank you so much so just before you say that just for anyone um listening at home on their computer yeah what is what does it take for it to take off of all if all the different factors are in place what is going to be the catalyst i don't want to say that lights the fire because that's terrible when it comes to gas but what's going to and what's going to kick this off in a big way i can kick it off excuse me um awful awful segue there yeah i'm firing uh again short 5.7 terawatts we feel is very achievable i'm going to say that now we published uh Porick and the team published a biomethane energy report in september last year i think you probably got a copy um that we went to the market it was a pretty blunt instrument we asked anybody that was ever interested in building a plant are you still interested in building a plant where are you with planning what's your feedstock what's scale of plant and roughly where is it going to be and we got a massive response as you as you know we we had a response from nearly 200 uh projects uh all over the country by one county uh one caller at the county for fear that the i'll get a backlash but nonetheless it was very national um and take it that it was a blunt instrument take it that it's people saying this is what we hope to do it's not what we will do uh it came to 14.8 terawatts so so that's a blunt instrument i'll say it for the third time um but ultimately what we're seeing is a level of of traction and appetite that 5.7 we think is very achievable assuming that you have your funding which is a big if but certainly the early movers are largely equity funded we find um they're not looking for project finance we find but certainly it does need a real level of certainty from government and what was perhaps a little disappointing about strategy when it was published and if you read the the excellent uh article from Stephen robin today's farmers journal he gives a really good overview of of key feedback from key audiences there's a general disappointment that why didn't the government provide more certainty for investors and developers uh like bishops government did in 2012 uh like they're doing again this year with with subsidy support so my sense is absolutely an appetite yes there's funding to get us going on this big big time but what we really need is signals from policy and i think that that's welcome and it's coming i think is my sense any other questions from the room yes forik there's one for uh jj i thought it's a very energy sorry podrick will you just say who you are for other people it's very energy intensive room here as well in terms of participants first maybe to give someone who wouldn't have full understanding of the actual implications what does it mean in reality for the feedstock providers the farmers like what are they going to have to invest in and what are they how are they and how quickly can they adapt uh to providing feedstock well just um sorry jay i'm sorry for pausing i would just in case anyone didn't hear on zoom that's just what what is in it for farmers and how is it going to work for them okay well just we talked about feedstock supply there as part of our um uh research we did an expression simple expression of interest a couple of years ago uh in the local paper we need about 60 hectares to provide the forages for the for the plant and we were looking for it within 10 kilometers of range because obviously you know transport of materials are uh you know 10 kilometers is okay but you don't want to be going 50 kilometers but we're oversubscribed by factory 12 in terms of the area to be provided so that would reflect on you know the research to show the potential resource resource that's there in terms of uh what farmers would have to do it depends on the big plants will probably have the storage at at at the plants so the forages would be produced and transported uh you would have situations maybe whereby also the the slurry would be provided at the plant i think it'll be different you know there'll probably be different um designs are different approaches but in terms of the feedstock you're producing the same crop as you're producing at the moment so the machinery the knowledge you know all that is already there in the past we looked at things like miscanthus you know a new crop uh how would you handle it how do you harvest it nothing was in place and that didn't turn out you know as you know that that overall project or overall result that you know wasn't great but um uh i have uh i'm fairly confident that you know farmers will step up to the market contractors they have you know it's the same type of equipment so you know it's already in you know ingrained in in the industry can i ask um what's the experience of Danish farmers when it comes to ad uh i'm probably not the best one to answer that question and are they happy they are happy yeah but it's uh i think the agricultural structure in Denmark is a little bit different than it is in in in in ireland but as i mentioned when uh when the when the subsidy scheme started back in in 2012 there was an there was there was incentives for the farmers to to really get this going so it played a huge huge role so i mean i haven't asked them lately but i'm pretty sure they're happy okay and in the absence of those kind of supports here it's kind of slowing progress is that what you're saying javish yeah i think what we are seeing though is um some of the developers that are getting ahead of policy are are signing 15 year feedstock deals with farmers now uh they're and with co-ops now um so so you know that there was a really decent income stream available for farmers today um they obviously get then as JJ mentioned but the the gesture uh by by way of um the circular response but there's other things that that we would love them to consider which is potentially getting involved directly becoming ad developers directly and that's what i think the strategy is looking to to address as well so so there's a real ownership within the agricultural community for this so a co-op kind of absolutely and it's starting to emerge in in pockets around the country but it's it's been slow and there's a lot of other things on their minds but it sounds like that's not kind of the area that you're thinking you're thinking bigger than that are you no no and actually i should have mentioned our partners we we we already have um a bio methane business that's active in our land cycle zero um and you know it's certainly looking at um you know the smaller kind of farms skid mounted uh you know uh technology so it's a very cost effective way to unlock the smaller farms and signing up um with farmers 15 year agreements for feedstock and you know i'm a farmer's daughter from the west of Ireland so i have a perspective on how farmers think um and you know there's a huge education that's required here i mean there's been some stuff in the the press i'm sure we've all seen it where you know people can react to something that's new and there's a huge education required because the opportunity for someone to have an income stream from you know agricultural waste if you if that is explained to a farmer in the right way they're all very commercially minded and i think it's it's you know down through the years in quiva you've seen it as well you know the farmers that had wind turbines on their land they're set up for life they have a steady income coming in annually for the next 25 30 years the same opportunity um exists here as it relates to bringing the farming community along um so i i think it's it's it's a win-win situation if it's done the right way any other questions in the room yes uh Brian Kennedy i need to plan for a donation business for electives um so i'm quite concerned about the development of our strategy around this area um quite a question just really around the policy the government policy particularly around data centers and very energy just i would characterize that as confused and conflicted at best um and what i'm wondering though is on one hand David you're saying that you know you're seeing some some movement in that conflictority is tomorrow and energy terms and then infrastructure terms first question is do you see government policy catching up quick enough because ultimately i think it's fair to say data centers are seeing as the stimulus and maybe our department businesses as the stimulus for this economy um over the next maybe three to five years maybe just follow a question to what's the what's the business plan when you go in and you're spending you know all the money you have on on on planning and and security start is it in the hope uh on this expectation that government policy will catch up with an incentive scheme or indeed is data centers department businesses that the delay for the medium to so um is policy going to move fast enough and what's the business plan okay nice easy one um the data center debate is very controversial uh you know that it's it's been played out in the media on one hand the economy this economy is built a lot of it on the tech sector um those big investors have publicly said they want their data beside their people um their big investors and they invest all over the world so that's one perspective on the other hand we have a serious emissions problem to sort uh so there's that's the dilemma and the same is happening in by the way with regard to the airport expansion which is also playing out at the moment as well and both very controversial both a real challenge because there isn't an easy solution and if if i was to say there's going to be an easy quick solution to that i'd be lying to you we've been engaged in those discussions for getting on for 20 months uh we're a very small player in a very rich debate but there's one thing for sure and i don't want to single out data centers um gas users high energy users large energy users we're very focused by the way on our top 300 large energy users these aren't data centers in fact they're not at all they're actually large high heat industries drying businesses food businesses pharmaceutical businesses all big job creators around the country they're desperately looking to decarbonize their companies their businesses and they can't electrify so so we see that sector of course the data centers are are part of that if you like large energy user base but that existing cluster more base is is a really key focus for us and we're engaging with them directly about the art of the possible on renewable gas so i'm not i'm not saying there's a need to support those industries first and then you know you can stick a forward panel on your data centers so off you do that way if i was a politician Katrina which i'm absolutely not never will be uh jobs are really important for every economy uh i personally like the idea that Ireland is putting his best foot forward to create as many jobs for this economy i hate the idea of work that we can do exceptionally well going to all the jurisdictions because we're dithering that's my sense of it and so i do believe we should be looking after the existing customers and i spent most of my time looking after our 725,000 customers today it's the biggest part of my job today but i'm really conscious of those high heat users that would either look into decarbonize and just can't with the vectors available to them on the electrification and Trisa do you want to come in with your business plan so at the end of the day it's all about the revenue line right and that's where i think government policy can just accelerate yes there are corporates in a probably fragmented way signing up today right um but it's you know unless there's a real strong signal from government we're definitely not going to get there on time so for you to invest capital and some people are willing to take the development risk some people want to come in when it's shovel ready classic infrastructure investors like you know the part of the business i represent ideally you're coming in when you're planning is secured and you kind of know what the roadmap looks like including that route to market but people will be able to and be willing to spend money earlier stage in the development process if it's very clear who your customer is going to be and you have a good sense of what they're going to pay but if it's like will it will it be will it be data center over here or will it be you know road haulier over here like that just creates just you know lack of you know a lot of barriers to to kind of moving fast so i guess you know your earlier comment it's yeah what's what's the revenue line and if you're clear on that well you know i think i think there would be a massive pivot in terms of how quickly we're approaching this agenda another question has come here in from Naomi bloom line from the Institute of Public Administration who's curious if there are any observations or tips um from the Danish experience on overcoming vested interests and lobbying from the fossil fuel industry sure i mean i think it's kind of similar to the wind adventure in Denmark you know years back there's always going to be doubters and there's always going to be people trying to push a different agenda but in Denmark like island there's an optimism and a can do attitude towards towards the green transition so i think that's that's probably pushing the agenda even more than than then this and i think it's about everybody politicians tso investors farmers and so on and you know cooperating in a in whatever capacity they can and so keep on keeping on kind of things probably yeah yeah i think and i'm what we're doing today is great and i think what you know as i talked about that previously the work gene i has done is so it's really in my perspective pushing the agenda in a good way i mean it's kind of hard to argue with a no-brainer in a way when it's sticking so many boxes it's just i suppose it's it's what are the next steps forward another question for Denmark sorry now you're getting you have to go deep into stuff about energy crops um this is from Shane Daherty who says that Denmark is phasing out the use of energy crops for bio methane production why is this and should Ireland continue to follow a grass-based feedstock supply um i mean i wouldn't touch upon what you should do in Ireland and what shouldn't do but yeah we're facing it out in Denmark i think i think right now it's probably around 10 percent or something like that in the future the the the limit will be five six or seven percent something like that and and in Denmark the predominant biomass is is manure and it will be in the future even though there's other stuff such as food waste and municipal waste that will play a part as well and is that some of the hesitancy in Ireland is just this kind of idea of um like food security and land use you know we have we have huge commitments in terms of rewilding and you know changing our agricultural practices and locking ourselves into still growing grass is something that we're actually trying to move away from or not well look at i think the actual quantities you know the land area needed for the in the Irish context are relatively small and we have a lot of land producing approximately half of what it could produce so if that was really managed correctly i don't think you would you would have very little impact on things like biodiversity and you could produce it sustainably and red clover is definitely left definitely the crop just in Denmark i've am i right in saying that the animals tend to be in all year round and you use a lot of straw you have a lot of tillage you use a lot of straw for bedding so you have a lot of manure we tend to have animals in for relatively short periods and we have slurry systems so slightly different potential feedstock availability but um Ireland is predominantly grassland so i think you know when you look at the actual the percentage of the land area that we're looking at it's it's relatively small relatively small. I'd like to go ahead. Brian, I'm ready for the institute. First of all I'd like to know about the speakers, that's fantastic. My question is just from an expert on the topic but from an overall policy one of you are on the interaction between the policy with respect to gas and biomethane policy with respect to electrification so I hear a lot about everything electrification, heat pumps, special employment of resources that have to do with heating houses etc. David may have alluded to this earlier problem about how biomethane might be best to involve it but is there your perspective of the right policy framework that balances the electrification side and the gas side scheme? So the to paraphrase what how do we reconcile putting a plug on everything with the fact that you can put a plug on everything? Yeah so how do we reconcile those? Who'd like to take that? I couldn't have a go if you like Brian. Firstly there isn't an either or there's no doubt about it the electrification I'm going to say lobby just the electrification lobby has been in situ for a number of decades and I've made a lot of sense that I made a lot of progress for us to get to net zero it needs every technology to be considered and it needs to be seen that there's benefits for renewable wind solar we need back up for when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining that's renewable and we need a very urgent phase out of fossil and there's lots of solutions to achieve all of that and I think the more we debate about one is better than the other the less we'll achieve our targets is my read of it and I think it's improving by the way so what we're talking about here is an integrated energy system and there's more integration now than there was even two years ago in terms of debate, discourse, discussion I see Jag in the room here for me as we are working very well together now because we have to coexist and you know what I said earlier about that 65% of Ireland's gas is used in power generation and that will continue to grow because electricity is going to continue to grow I think that that wasn't understood frankly that even just that message how important electricity is but in the total energy mix oil is still the dominant vector in Ireland today still 50% of primary energy in Ireland but gas is only 30% of Ireland's total energy so all of that debate in the round integrated energy system needing to evolve I think there's a much more mature debate taking place now and as less of the finger pointing going on and you know this is good and this isn't so good my sense less of the either or and more we needed it we need everyone well it's another stat but it's from germany so 85% of the power in the german market is molecules so it's like the molecule does not get enough of attention and we need to have green molecules in order to achieve our net zero targets you can't electrify everything the production of chemicals the production of materials like decarbonizing the world of made things you look around the room the electron has gotten all the attention there is so much more carbon embedded in our daily lives materials chemicals what heats this room etc we talked about gas I think it's just simply been overlooked perhaps because the policy signals on the electrification side were much clearer and they have been for decades and also I think just the world of industry tends to be inherently fragmented so the investment opportunity is it's kind of you know it's it's you know a lot of investors they want to gravitate towards the big large transactions because a lot of info phones now are you know 15 20 billion dollars we're actually very much focused on the mid market where you're looking for smaller investment opportunities so I kind of feel there's been a reason why it has been the way it is but it's it is definitely changing because I think people have switched on to the need to sort of broaden it outside of electrification you see that we've had you see that kind of it they've been less about putting a plug on everything and about actually decarbonizing all our energy absolutely it's going to be a blend and you know we also hydrogen on the horizon as well which you know as as that technology develops and becomes commercialized that'll also bring a different dimension but it's not going to be possible to electrify everything but it is a really key component of the decarbonization journey but there's simply some processes that can't be electrified that are going to require longer term solutions around green gas and you think there's a prioritization that's going to happen with that like where those things are going to be just top of the list knock them off take get rid of your five percent's 10 percent's that kind of thing yeah no there is and in fact there's a I can't remember his name off top of my head but there is a hydrogen ladder has been published Michael Lieber Lieber yeah well actually this question has come in from Michael Collier who's an IEA member saying will hydrogen achieve a role anytime soon in the GNI portfolio it's going to be like fusion here it's we're still waiting for it no it won't be 50 years but no but what Lieber talks about is the smart use of hydrogen because it is a scarce resource certainly for now and we want green hydrogen we want hydrogen derived from electrolysis or and renewable hydrogen if that makes sense not blue hydrogen whereas you know it comes about from natural gas and carbon capture and storage and so on that's Ireland the government policy green hydrogen is good but the uses of it and it's a bit like your your b o rating in your home you've got a to g and you know well down the the the list of priorities will be domestic use for example it just wouldn't make sense but there are areas typically we don't have a lot of them by the way in Ireland like very complex petrochemical processes and really high heat industries northern Germany industry steel industries we don't have a lot of that in Ireland and but they would be the entities that would benefit from scale hydrogen the quicker and but in terms of the pecking order and electrification you know we certainly should strive to get electrification everywhere we possibly can because it is cleaner but we've got to absolutely look at the sources of that there is no point in us you know prolonging a coal fired power station which we're not and to derive electricity and then saying isn't it great that we're electrifying everything it's got to be coming from wind solar and then ultimately from green hydrogen is that cool um so i'm just kind of conscious that we've got about five minutes left um i like asking this question but because it's kind of fanciful thinking but if you were to come back in 10 years time to us you can all think about this what do you think we will have done and or like what will be the things that we'll have achieved that you'll say oh that was good move that was a good move that was a good move um i'll hope you'll be here sooner than in 10 years for example um well look i'm big serious by 2030 where will be asked um at 5.7 maybe more hopefully more and it's it's going to be interesting to see the next few years where they're you know whether they'll be specific and support schemes and specific initiatives from politicians to to to drive the effort for developing biomethane um how would you do so what do you think oh wouldn't it be great if our green molecule industry so green gas green hydrogen was as big as if not bigger than our wind energy industry today that that would be my hope and it's possible right we know how to do it so that would be my ambition and hope great JJ what do you think yeah i know it's been mentioned that there are plants with plan of mission and ready to go but there is a you know a lead in time to build these plants and six you know two thousand and uh uh 30 is going to come around very soon so i think if we do achieve the 5.7 tarot with our target it'll be a great it'll be a great achievement and then move forward in the next decade yeah yeah fever yeah likewise i think you know hitting that 5.7 tarot with our target by 2030 is key but that's only the start of the ambition you know that there's huge scope beyond that and i think as Prisa said hopefully in six years time and 10 years time we'd have you know a thriving economy all focused on the biomethane with jobs you know it's stimulating the the economy in rural Ireland and providing revenue streams for agricultural use so yeah huge huge potential and hopefully in six years time what will be 25 30 years in the sector at that point hopefully we'll have really hopefully we'll you know we'll be able to look back at pride on the journey Ireland has taken from the from wind into solar and onwards into green gas Abhichur David yeah look i won't i won't repeat what everyone said about the 5.7 it's very doable we're going to do it um the the one that i'm probably keenest on if i look six years ahead is that Ireland is still seen as the destination of choice for large investment in tech in pharmaceuticals in the big fdi investors that are coming here there was a recent announcement that IBM made about a quantum data center in Germany and they didn't even consider Ireland for it and they said that publicly and that's not good enough is that because of our energy they it was a number of reasons but energy security was a key one and um you know i i i think we have done a remarkably amazing job around fdi and i'd like for that to continue so by 2030 i'd like for the people if there's any doubts out there i'd like for them to remember that this economy is still built on the best foundations of our educated workforce our tax system our security system our energy security as well so that's my sense that that's looking outward in and in 10 years time we won't be having discussions about it because it'll be an established indigenous industry that's surviving and thriving and hopefully um decarbonizing at the same time does anyone have any other questions from the floor just before yes go ahead um right with bogas we are exploring renewable gas currently divided into uses so we're looking at the internal target of one pair of whatever by next year as well as 5.7 and you look at to develop advanced unique feedstock great connection planning connection and you need your off-take particularly if we're talking wind 10 or 15 years of a fixed price to get built so should we not call out the government strategy for things to provide that currently and probably the crucial ingredient we need in order to get tax built in our land so do you think government is failing to kind of give us the security that we need in order to do what we actually are setting out to do it is a quicker sort of about uh we we've we've been discussing this too long and I think everybody agrees one thing I will say um and and I've been quoted and I'll say it I'll say it as as gently as I possibly can if there was one one positive and it's a very small positive one positive that's come out of the russia ukraine situation is a much better understanding of the energy system and indeed we've all become as a as a continent less dependent on russian gas um and the flows in fact we haven't talked about it today but denmark's a massive exporter now of gas into germany into sweden uh from recollection but what came out of that that repower you thinking that 10 percent of gas demand being biomethane by 2030 that's across the entire continent uh our government because of our connection to a third country in the uk managed to get a form of derogation um and but the 5.7 terroir still represents 10 percent that's still the target I I personally feel that we need to stop discussion and get on and deliver it I do think that's coming that's my sense is there's more urgency now than there was six months ago well let's draw this discussion to a close and if we stop talking about it and just get on with it um thank you so much for all your insights big warm round of applause please all our i think um you know I like the nelson-mandele quote when something seems daunting it's always seems impossible until it's done and I kind of feel like in a couple years time we might be looking back on discussions like this and going oh yeah we did us we got there in the end uh despite despite um delays and dilly dallying um so um thank you to everyone for attending thank you for your attention and your engagement for those in line um thank you for tuning in um for those in the room you're allowed um come downstairs for a reception for those at home you'd have to just go make yourself a cup of tea um but I hope that I hope we won't be having this discussion again I hope we'll just be cracking on with it um so um germy leban have a good out this long before