Community Energy Federation of Ireland

Throughout Ireland, many communities are working towards setting up community owned renewable generation projects.  Community owned renewable energy generation and storage allows local people to invest in, own, and benefit from renewable energy directly, through democratic, participative “renewable energy communities” which are not for shareholder profit but rather reinvestment back into the community.

However, communities who are trying to establish renewable generation projects of more than 50kw have faced continual barriers and moving goal posts from the Government.

In 2022 Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) established a grant mechanism first called the “Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) Enabling Grant” and then renamed the “Community Renewable Electricity Grant”, which has the primary purpose of supporting community groups interested in developing a 50kw+ renewable energy project during the design and permitting stage, for 80% of eligible costs up to a maximum of €180,000.  (For context 50kw of solar panels take up about the size of a basketball court.)

Since the SEAI Community Enabling Framework was launched in 2022,  no 100% Community  Owned Renewable Energy Project has been successful in accessing this funding support mechanism.

There are four community-owned projects who were successful in a RESS process to access a supportive tariff (the tariff provides support only after the project is generating electricity, and does not support the startup process).  These four projects have invested almost €1m euros to date in preparation and establishment costs, and made applications for Enabling Grant Funding but none have received any funding under this grant for the costs of establishing their projects.

Since then, a significant number of additional communities have gone through stages of feasibility studies, planning permission, grid connection applications, RESS and now SRESS tariff scheme applications, with substantial volunteer effort and funds raised in the community, in the expectation that this grant would support the project to progress to implementation. 

The majority of these projects have now stalled and are unable to proceed any further due to not being able to access the SEAI Enabling Grant funding which was specifically designed to support communities in meeting these  early stage development costs.  In the appendices below we have written more detail on two examples of projects which have been stalled – South Kerry Development Partnership and Kilcock Renewable Energy Community.

SEAI are not accepting grant applications. An earlier reason for delays in accepting grant applications was that application forms were changing due to the transition from RESS to SRESS.  The latest reason for delays with the grant from SEAI is that they need to appoint consultants to study whether the grant breaches EU rules on state aid before issuing grants – appointing the consultants will take months, and then the consultancy itself will take months, meaning that funds will not be accessible until mid 2026 at the earliest.  The question arises as to why such due diligence was not carried out at an earlier stage – i.e. why are communities promised support and provided with details on grant funding available, invest substantial volunteer effort, undergo the feasibility studies which are needed for the grant application, only for the promised support not to be delivered?

Meanwhile, communities are facing situations where their planning approvals and grid connection approvals are set to expire, with ESB networks stage payments of  €20,000 or more falling due and communities being at  risk of their grid offer being revoked if these payments are not made.  For communities, being unable to pay these fees at this stage means abandoning projects, with years of wasted volunteer time, effort and expense.

Fact sheet

500 MW	The MW installed target for Energy Communities in the Climate Action Plan 2030
4.6 MW	The MW installed of community energy in Ireland as of December 2025 (Templederry Wind Farm which was energised in November 2012)
1	The number of Renewable Energy Communities (REC’s) connected to the grid and generating more than 0.5MW on renewable energy (Templederry Wind Farm)
10 Years	Average project timeline for connection to grid and generation for a community projects (above 0.5MW )
4	The number of 100% Community-Led projects who were successful in the RESS in 2020 and received a ‘Letter of Offer’
None	The number of Communities that were successful in RESS, that are now generating electricity
None	The number of Enabling Grants issued to 100% Community Owned energy projects under SEAI Community Enabling Framework
7	The number of 100% Community-Led projects who cannot proceed to SRESS application stage due to financial constraints

Proposed way forward

• There is no need for the SEAI to take months to procure consultants to examine this funding scheme against rules on state aid and commercial competition – this is funding for not-for-profit community projects trying to improve their areas.  For example, if a community non-profit sports facility applies for grant funding to help it get established, as well as a subsidy for some of its planned community sport activities, it would not make sense to block it by referring it to consultants for being double funding and unfair competition with a local commercial for-profit gym.  Many conditions are already stacked against community energy projects and in favour of commercial developers, such as grid connection access, caps on project size etc. 

• We are calling for the enabling fund, as originally announced, to be opened up immediately to support the many community projects across the country affected by this chaos, get up and running.  

• In addition, any legitimate costs incurred by approved communities in relation to developing their projects while this fund has been unavailable, need to be covered in full.  Communities were not given the opportunity to obtain “prior approval” due to delays on SEAI/Government side, therefore they should not be penalised for not having that approval prior to spending on costs which were previously announced as being eligible for funding.

• Rather than putting up barriers in front of communities, the Government and all state/semi state organisations should be doing everything possible to support communities engaging with issues related to achieving climate change goals and promoting vibrant, sustainable rural communities across the country.

Appendix A – background on RESS, SRESS and the enabling grant

What is RESS

The Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) is a government support scheme based on an Auction process for the development of renewable electricity projects in Ireland. The purpose of RESS is to enable Ireland to meet its target of 80% renewable electricity by 2030, and the EU-wide target of 32% by 2030.

https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-climate-energy-and-the-environment/publications/renewable-electricity-support-scheme-ress/

There are several community aspects which were built into RESS to enable communities to participate in the generation of renewable electricity.

These include:

1. Community category in RESS auctions – portion of auction capacity ring-fenced for community-led projects between 0.5 – 5MW
2. Community Enabling Framework – a range of resources to support communities to develop and deliver community renewable energy projects, including an enabling grant.

The RESS scheme was then superceded by SRESS scheme (below).

What is SRESS

The Small-Scale Renewable Energy Support Scheme (SRESS) supersedes RESS for projects up to 6 MW in size. The SRESS export tariff has been designed with small-scale (above 50kW and up to 6MW in capacity size) community, farm and SME projects in mind, offering such projects a simpler, non-competitive, route to market compared to the utility-scale RESS.

The SRESS energy export tariff provides a 15-year tariff to successful applicants.

Support is provided to these projects by a Feed-in Premium (FiP) tariff without an auction. The support rate is provided for the support lifetime, with successful applicants receiving a premium on the market revenues they receive for their renewable electricity.

https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-climate-energy-and-the-environment/publications/small-scale-renewable-electricity-generation/

What is the SEAI Enabling Grant / Community Renewable Electricity Grant

The Community Enabling Framework is a package of enabling supports including technical, and financial services which would be available to community projects under the SRESS.

As part of the Community Enabling Framework a grant was put in place to provide end to end support for projects from their concept stage all the way through to operationalisation. The total grant available is €180,000 or 80% of eligible costs, whichever is the lesser.

This process is divided into three phases, those being:

• Early-stage support (entity formation, land control, project design and planning costs, meteorological mast (wind)) up to €75,000.
• Mid-stage support (portion of grid costs and development costs) up to €130,000 minus any drawdown from early stage.
• Late-stage support (remaining grid costs, costs related to developing project financing) up to €180,000 minus any drawdown from early and mid-stage

Appendix B – Case study – South Kerry Development Partnership

• 4.4MW Project “shovel ready” with Lease Option on site, planning granted and a grid connection secured
• 2 separate SEAI feasibility studies undertaken into the proposed project to ensure viability and deem it “eligible” for the enabling funding on the 15th May, 2024.  The community were provided with the application form to apply for the enabling grant. They then proceeded to finalise their Lease Option so that they could proceed with their project based on having this funding support available.
• There were clear details of the elements that would be covered by this enabling funding – section 1.8  of the original SEAI grant document, and also included here https://www.seai.ie/sites/default/files/publications/Community-renewables-toolkit-financing.pdf 
• The community were in the process of making an application when they were informed that there might be “issues” with the proposed scheme and they could not seek “prior approval” for their proposed “eligible costs”
• Continuous delays in terms of the announcement of the SRESS feed-in tariff for projects such as this one (almost 2 years)
• Once this detail was announced, it then became clear that applications for the enabling grant would not be accepted until “issues” were resolved – SEAI said that there were/are potential questions as to what will be eligible for funding under the grant. SEAI are also saying it might now be a reduced amount that would be available and not the €180k that was originally promised.
• This is causing chaos for the community in terms of developing their project for the following reasons:
  • The community are now in a position where they have no idea as to whether or when the funding will be available to them, despite the fact that they have payment commitments to make – namely grid connection payments in order to hold their grid offer, consultant costs in order to finalise their grid line route, planning/engineering fees associated with applying for the planning required for this route, professional fees associated with securing the finance for the project, legal fees associated with setting up the formal legal structure etc. This came to the fore just this week (14th November) when they had to find a source of funding to pay more than 25k to ESB Networks in order to secure their grid offer. They did try to seek an extension on the grid offer given the issues with the enabling grant but ESB Networks did not engage with them on this and basically said pay up or lose the offer.
  • It is impossible to be able to finalise financial projections in order to seek debt financing. as they have no idea whether or how much funding will potentially be available to them through the grant. 
  • Any costs they incur now at this crucial stage in the development of the project are unlikely to be recoverable (based on the enabling fund rules) given they do not have “prior approval” – they can’t get this approval given the fund is currently not available and their costs are occurring regardless. The community are being penalised, when they followed all of the rules and proceeded in good faith with developing the project with the expectation that the SEAI would adhere to their promised funding commitments for community energy. 
  • Planning deadlines/lease option deadlines etc. are still in place and still have to be dealt with – none of these are at a “standstill” despite the fact that the Department/SEAI seem to be unable to resolve the issues. 

Appendix C – Case study – Kilcock Renewable Energy Community (REC)

• Dolanstown Solar farm 5 MW Project – Heads of terms Lease Option in place with landowner on a 21 acre site and a grid connection secured with ESB networks.
• Initial feasibility study completed by SEAI funded trusted advisor (GDG Geosystems) with no red flags. 
• Detailed SEAI feasibility study undertaken by SEAI funded trusted advisors (GDG Geosystems & QMPF) with no red flags. 
• Kilcock REC registered as a CLG in order to apply for a grid connection (at a cost of €2000 funded by another community group). Grid connection approved and ESB connection offer received from ESB networks. 
• Kilcock REC are now ready to move to the next phase of the project as per SEAI project development plan, ie early stage project development. This would entail professional services for legal entity formation, land lease agreements, business planning and project design and planning application. SEAI Community Enabling Grant support for this early stage development is up to €75K which would assist Kilcock REC in progressing through the early stage project development, including grid connection costs. 
• Kilcock REC has been in contact with local Credit Union who are prepared to supply funding for project development but the REC is unwilling to proceed any further with this project until they receive a commitment from SEAI that the Community Enabling Grant will be paid to the REC as it progresses through early/mid/late stage planning and design phases of the project.
• There were clear details of the elements that would be covered by this enabling funding – section 1.8  of the original SEAI grant document, and also included here https://www.seai.ie/sites/default/files/publications/Community-renewables-toolkit-financing.pdf 
• The delays in the grant have effectively stopped the progress of this community initiative in its tracks and the REC are not able to progress further until this issue is resolved.