{"id":337823,"date":"2026-03-10T00:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T00:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/337823\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T00:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T00:24:08","slug":"ireland-to-miss-renewable-energy-targets-up-to-2030-cabinet-told","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/337823\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland to miss renewable energy targets up to 2030, Cabinet told"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland will fall short of renewable energy targets up to 2030, the Cabinet heard on Monday.<\/p>\n

The State met its \u201cbaseline\u201d renewable energy target of 16% in 2024 but is projected to fall short of interim targets in 2025 (27.6%) and 2027 (33.6%), according to a memo brought to Cabinet.<\/p>\n

The overall ambition is a renewable energy share of 43% in 2030.<\/p>\n

A Department of Climate spokesman said: \u201cIreland will fall short of our renewable energy targets up to 2030.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese targets are based on the share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption in the electricity, heat and transport sectors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reacting to the development, Green Party leader Roderic O\u2019Gorman said it was a \u201cconsequence of this Government\u2019s lack of focus on renewables\u201d and called for the publication of the Government\u2019s projections.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Press Association, he added: \u201cThis Government isn\u2019t going to reach the renewable energy targets for 2030 and now the Irish taxpayer is going to pay a price.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2025 report from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (IFAC) and the Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC) estimated that the cost of missing the targets could range between 200 million euros and 4.4 billion euros.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

A Government spokesman said further analysis of available \u201coptions\u201d is being undertaken, including paying a financial contribution to renewable energy projects in other EU member states in return for a \u201cstatistical allocation\u201d of the energy produced.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe priority will still remain supporting domestic renewable generation.<\/p>\n

\u201cFurther analysis is going to be undertaken to assess the potential value and cost effectiveness of these mechanisms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Gorman said the energy financing mechanism referenced by the Government will form part of the cost of not meeting targets.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cThe cost of not meeting these particular renewable energy targets could be as high as 4.4 billion euro, and instead of investing this money domestically to support renewables, this money now has to be transferred back to the EU and it\u2019s actually going to benefit those countries that have met their renewable targets \u2013 and Spain and Denmark are two really good examples there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government needs to get serious about renewables.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, it needs to support the development of the ports that will be needed to service the building of offshore turbines, and it needs to allow further development of battery storage so renewable energy that\u2019s generated in times of low demand can actually be stored and used in times of high demand.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same IFAC and CCAC report estimated that the cost of missing targets under the Effort Sharing Regulation could range between three and 16 billion euros, while underperforming in the Land-Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry Regulation could cost between 0.5 and 5.8 billion euros.<\/p>\n

That projects a worst-case scenario of spending up to 26 billion euros.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Gorman said he was hopeful the Government would examine joint investment projects with other EU countries as an attempt to bridge the gap.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cAt least if we\u2019re doing some joint venture with another EU member state, we might get some benefit in the longer term from the money we\u2019re putting into that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Gorman added that it was important for the Government to state clearly \u201chow far we\u2019re going to miss our interim targets\u201d and the 2030 goal.<\/p>\n

He also said it should estimate the final cost, adding: \u201cAre they going to start buying the credits now, or are they going to wait until the end \u2013 because most economic analysis suggests the cost of these credits is going to go up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment said the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland will publish new renewable energy projections in the second half of this year.<\/p>\n

The department added Ireland has reached a \u201crecord\u201d of approximately 8GW of renewable generation capacity, and said it was prioritising the development of offshore wind.<\/p>\n

There are now five phase one offshore wind developments and the Commission of Regulation of Utilities has 18.9 billion euros in the electricity grid for the period 2026-2030.<\/p>\n

It also said it had surpassed targets on electric vehicle sales and announced enhanced retrofitting grants.<\/p>\n

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ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland will fall short of renewable energy targets up to 2030, the Cabinet heard on Monday. The State…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[580,61,60,43,16389,155029],"class_list":["post-337823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-energy","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-renewables","tag-roderic-ogorman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}