Proposals have been submitted by the Micro-Renewable Energy Federation (MREF) to Government for strong supports for the deployment of micro-generation of renewable energy by households, businesses and farms.
This would be done as part of a Government Covid-19 stimulus package to get the Irish economy moving again.
He said that following the recent informal European Council meeting, EU leaders adopted a statement on Europe’s actions in response to the Covid-19 outbreak which called on political leaders to integrate Europe’s Green Transition into measures to restart Europe’s economies back to normal functioning.
Green Transition move
Smith said that the decision of the European Council to include the Green Transition as a key element of Europe’s Covid-19 stimulus response “is smart and forward looking”.
Continuing, he said: “Solar power is the most employment-intensive, low-cost and easily-deployable renewable technology which, with the right stimulus, will be widely adopted across all sectors of society.
Financial stimulus for solar PV installations need to be front-loaded to encourage businesses, farms and households to invest sooner rather than later, and they should also be supported with specific low-interest loans where the investment can be repaid from savings made in energy costs over a three to five-year period.
The chairman said that a stimulus for micro-generation would have many benefits with businesses being encouraged to invest in reducing their ongoing costs and carbon emissions while helping the economy and their local communities to recover from this public health crisis.
In addition he said, from a state perspective, such a package would “quickly help get people back to work, generating taxes and doing a job that needs to be done anyway in reducing carbon emissions to meet our international obligations and benefiting future generations”.
Lessons from current crisis
Smith added: “Lessons from the current crisis need to be acted on.”
Quoting warnings of the threat of pandemics from public figures over the past 15 years such as George Bush and Bill Gates, he added: “Clearly, many of the most advanced nations on the planet did not prepare adequately for the current crisis.
Last year, world renowned environmentalist and broadcaster, Sir David Attenborough, warned that the very existence of the natural world as we know it was at risk due to climate change. He said that he hoped world leaders would now put climate change to the top of the political agenda.
“The risks of climate change can no longer be dismissed as ‘scare mongering’ or ‘it will never happen’.
“The current pandemic crisis should be the long-overdue wake-up call to world leaders on the consequences for our planet and its peoples of ignoring the obvious threat of climate change,” Smith concluded.