Here is the second and final post about the Farming Renewable Energy Industry Summit organised by Agri Insider which myself and Fiona McAteer attended on behalf of Arigna Group. I’d appreciate if you could follow Arigna Group on LinkedIn, to track their progress as one of the world’s largest biochar producers, located right here in Ireland.

In the session on grid connection with Rory Mullan of Mullan Grid Consulting, Fionán McCarthy of Lightsource bp, Richard Murphy of Pinsent Masons and Eoin Hodge of SuperNode Ltd, the panel discussed the ongoing issue of grid connection and why it is unlikely to be solved anytime soon. SuperNode Ltd’s low resistance cables look very interesting and would be a gamechanger if rolled out across Europe.

In the session on Engagement Best Practices sessions with John Reilly of Bord na Móna, Paul Clancy of Enerpower powered by Greenvolt , Noreen Brennan of University of Galway and Declan Meally of Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), frustration was expressed with the planning system whereby one individual can stall or terminate large infrastructure projects regardless of the wishes of the majority in the local or wider community. There are no obvious solutions to this in the absence of significant legislative change.

John McGarry of LP3 took us through “The Energy Playbook” noting best practice and strategies on how to address landowner, community and legal concerns.

In the final panel of the day with Karol Kissane of the Ifac Ireland, Seán Finan of Irish Bioenergy Association (IrBEA), James Dineen of Ørsted and Redmond McEvoy of Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the panel discussed the forthcoming National Biomethane Strategy. There was a clear message that equipment capital grants won’t spur investors to build plants and that offtake agreement are required to incentivise investors to make the large and long term investments needed to build AD plants.