Read it here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/external_clips/3056574/AbbeyRd_3_pages.pdf?1556562931
Longread interview: Eddie Jordan
Longread profile interview: David McMurtry
Longread profile for the Sunday Business Post
Click here to read: https://s3.amazonaws.com/external_clips/2865350/McMurtry_SBP_pdf.pdf?1537981494
2017 Update
My bylines are available here: http://johnreynolds.contently.com and here: http://www.independent.ie/search/?fromSection=business&search=john+reynolds
I’m also available for freelance commissions to write pieces like this:
Contently Portfolio
I’ve put together a portfolio featuring a selection of my articles from the Sunday Independent, The Irish Times, The Sunday Times, The Spectator and The Independent (UK edition) on Contently.
It can be viewed by clicking here.
Recent Sunday Independent business features
Here are four recent Sunday Independent business features I wrote and contributed to:
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/building-blocks-for-data-centres-30013016.html
Wind Energy in Ireland: An Effort To Establish the True Cost
* These are some key excepts from an article I wrote that was first published in the Irish Times Innovation magazine in March 2011
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The Irish Academy of Engineers, which claims no commercial or political affiliation, claims that the planned development of wind farms across the country to more than three times its current level of 1,500MW could cost more than €10 billion, with households and businesses being hit by higher bills.
The organisation says the country has enough wind and conventional power to meet its needs until 2020 so it may be wise to halt all planned development of wind farms for at least five years.
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“What is clear is that spark spreads –the margins that represent transmission costs and profit –are higher than in the UK or Europe.
The amount available, which may be pure profit, is up to four or five times that found in those markets. On average we calculate it is €32 perMWh (megawatt hour) here, whereas in the UK it is about €11 per MWh,” he (Ger Fulham, Managing Director of Kore Energy) claims.
Also affecting billpayers is the issue of capacity payments, paid to all generators of electricity simply for being available to supply electricity to the power s notice.
Fine Gael plans to reduce these “within two years” as part of its energy policy, but this will come too late for billpayers who have already paid out €1.5 billion in these payments over the past three years, according to Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) figures.
“We calculate that the capacity payment being paid to generators is €17 per MWh, three times the level of what is paid in the UK market. Ultimately it appears to be profit, with no tangible benefits,” says Fulham.
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Using market figures, a former industry source calculates that, because of this flaw in the market structure, the difference between the market price for electricity and the average price in 2008 was €870 million – all of which was unnecessarily passed on to billpaying businesses and households.
Between now and 2015, billpayers will also pay at least €1.4 billion in grid development and improvement costs that are necessary for the development of more wind farms, according to grid operator Eirgrid.
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In addition, there is the €500 million cost to billpayers of the East-West interconnector, also needed to facilitate more wind energy, it (Eirgrid) says.
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Another aspect of all this, perhaps indicating the true total cost of all of this wind energy, is that the ESB in 2008 announced plans to invest €11 billion in the grid and a further €11 billion in renewables and smart meters by 2020, although ESB sources say this strategy may be revised.
If this is the case then even allowing for what may have been spent to date, more than the €10 billion IAE figure may not have yet been spent. Yet there remains no indication of what this would mean for billpayers.
My addendum: Add up some of the numbers highlighted and you begin to get an idea.
The SEAI’s report (http://www.seai.ie/News_Events/Press_Releases/2014/Renewable-energy-has-saved-Ireland-over-%E2%82%AC1-billion-in-fossil-fuel-imports-in-past-five-years.html) is not an accurate reflection of the truth.
Renewables Future Left Blowing in the Wind
Mon, Apr 02, 2012
Ambitious plans to capitalise on renewable opportunities in Ireland appear to have stalled and it remains to be seen if the Government can get things back on track, writes JOHN REYNOLDS
THE GOVERNMENT’S jobs action plan talks of building upon our Emerald Isle image and capitalising on opportunities, particularly in renewable energy, to “green” the economy. But has the dream faded?
“I was looking for very specific, measurable, timelined tasks . They’re not there. Without those, we don’t have a plan,” is the blunt observation of Joe O’Carroll, managing director of Maynooth and Cheshire-based Imperative Energy, a biomass systems company, on what he says is essentially a long “to-do” list that was announced last month by the Government.
While understandably focused on attempting to stabilise the economy, it remains to be seen whether Fine Gael and Labour can help the reinvigorate a sector that seems to have fallen into the doldrums.
Subsidy schemes for wind farms and biomass systems that were stalled somewhere between here and Brussels for more than a year have only recently been approved, for example.
But in the meantime, no one in business or Government has painted a detailed, meaningful picture of what the nation might look like if we capitalised on our strengths and addressed our weaknesses in this sector.
If we contrast our situation with Britain, the industry there is encouraged by a green investment bank with £3 billion of financial muscle behind it to boost investment and a fast-track system for planning permission for renewables.
In the US, the sector has received hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus spending. Among the projects showcased at last month’s annual conference for the US department of energy’s advanced research projects division were batteries that could give electric cars a 500-mile range, fuel that could be extracted from tobacco leaves, a biofuel derived from bacteria, giant batteries to back up solar parks and wind farms and laser-powered drills that improve access to geothermal energy.
Although overshadowed by the $535 million of taxpayers’ money lost on solar firm Solyndra, those recent examples of the type of inventive research the US is funding beg the question of whether there is enough RD happening here.
The uncomfortable but likely answer is that there is not and that there will not be while our secondary and third-level education standards are falling.
We are still several years away from having the scale of wind, wave, tidal energy installations and other renewables needed to transform how Ireland generates electricity.
Marine energy is still being commercialised. Wind has received hundreds of millions of euro in subsidies to date, but it is not clear if more can be connected to our grid without prohibitively increasing our electricity bills even further.
The ESB and Bord Gáis, which have mainly been active in wind energy development, may be sold off, with as yet unknown effects.
The Spirit of Ireland project, now known as Natural Hydro Energy – an ambitious project that involves building man-made pumped storage reservoirs to provide carbon-free energy to back up wind farms – is at least two years away from starting, subject to planning permission, sources say. It could take another four years to build.
In the short term, our indebted State could provide a €300m annual stimulus to the domestic economy by supporting the biomass sector in one relatively simple way, O’Carroll says.
All that is needed is for the Government to alter how it procures heating fuel – currently imported gas and oil – for all public buildings in the State.
“We could offer fully financed solutions with no capital cost to the State. We’re asking for a chance to tender for a long-term renewable energy-heating solution using the technology that makes the most economic sense,” he says.
He has proposed this several times to the relevant ministers and Sustainable Energy Authority Ireland. “They listen, but then somewhere in the system, the idea gets bogged down in inertia, he adds.
Paul Carbery of Wicklow firm RES, an installer of small-scale renewable energy systems, whose clients are small- and medium- sized businesses, has turned to the UK, where these systems receive a small subsidy, to grow his business.
He shares this frustration. “The level of engagement and understanding from the Department of Energy seems very poor. I’m not sure civil servants take our industry and the support it needs, which can in turn create jobs, seriously.”
It is this inertia that has driven some of our other successful renewable energy companies into the arms of other, more proactive governments.
The Scottish government helped to finance the initial trials of Dublin and Louth-based tidal turbine maker Openhydro in 2007, for example.
Responding to our queries on plans for the sector, Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan said: “In our efforts to return to stronger economic growth, it is of the utmost importance that we embed rigorous sustainability requirements in economic and environmental terms. If we get our growth strategy wrong, we run the very real and significant risk of locking ourselves into an environmentally unsustainable future that will undermine our credibility on environmental grounds, and our competitive position in the medium and longer term.
“The deep cuts in emissions that will be required in the period to 2050 represent a huge challenge for Ireland, but an early and effective transition to a low-carbon path holds out the prospect of a real opportunity to demonstrate environmental credibility, and achieve competitive advantage in the emerging global green economy.”
The Minister for Energy and Natural Resources Pat Rabbitte did not respond to our questions.
Some industry executives would welcome the appointment of a minister who is accountable for meeting certain green-energy targets and supporting growth in the wider green economy.
Others argue that an existing umbrella organisation, Sustainable Energy Ireland, run by a proven management team whose salaries are linked to their results, would be preferable.
After a year in power, it would be unfair to say this Government has abandoned the green economy, but there is a perceivable sense of ambivalence about it, amongst many in the sector.
In the face of increasing home heating, petrol and electricity bills, aside from perhaps a few more wind turbines dotted around the countryside and the odd electric car charging point here and there, there is very little happening that is tangible to the wider public.
As a result, we are arguably a long way off making the economy very much greener, or generating any significant numbers of new jobs in this sector.
More worryingly for the future, aside from the wave and tidal technologies being developed here, there are few encouraging signs that an energy technology with the potential to be a global game-changer will emerge from Ireland in the near future.
IThey listen, but then somewhere in the system, the idea gets bogged down in inertia
Stars of the green economy where are they now?
IMPERATIVE ENERGY
Some 90 per cent of this bioenergy system developers business is now done in the UK – it recently secured a €70 million contract in Birmingham.
A flagship project in Claremorris, Co Mayo, and a smaller one in Arklow are awaiting planning permission after being delayed by the finalisation of the Refit3 subsidy scheme, which it hopes will boost its Irish business once again.
WAVEBOB
This Maynooth wave energy developer aims to have its first 100kw device installed in Scotland early next year, followed by two more in Portugal and the US over the next two years.
It shortly hopes to close a €10 million funding round and is part of the WestWave consortium, which aims to develop a wave farm off the west coast by 2016.
OPENHYDRO
Its main focus is currently on the world’s largest tidal array off the Brittany coast for French utility giant EDF. It is expected to be completed later this year and has been supported by the EU, the Brittany region and the French government.
Other arrays in Scotland, the west of Ireland, Canada and the Channel Islands are planned in the coming years.
THE SPIRIT OF IRELAND PROJECT
This multibillion-euro project is at least six years away from being completed. Pumped storage reservoirs in the west of Ireland, combined with onshore and offshore wind farms in the region, would provide hundreds of megawatts of carbon-free power for export to the UK.
MAINSTREAM RENEWABLE POWER
Although the wind energy firm of Eddie O’Connor (below) is focused on wind farm developments in Chile, South Africa, North America and the North Sea, it also has a renewed interest in Ireland and intends to float on the Hong Kong stock exchange some time next year.
Published in The Irish Times: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0402/1224314225873.html
Give me your tired, your poor…
Give the banks your tired, your poor, your unemployed masses yearning to be debt and mortgage-free,
The wretched toxic debts of Europe’s austerity-ridden shores,
Send the hopeless citizens and taxpayers, who have lost their democracies to the streets,
I lift my lamp beside the doors of the EU, the IMF and the ECB.
(with apologies to Emma Lazarus, who wrote much more eloquent lines in a sonnet, which is inscribed on a plaque in the Statue of Liberty – the one that says: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free)
If the ECB and Europe hang Ireland out to dry, Europe will have completely ceased to be a democracy.
Ireland should prepare for default and seek to adopt Sterling as our new currency asap.
Seanie and Britain’s Department of Business
WHAT will all the Sir Humphrey civil servant types at Britain’s Department of Business, Innovation and Skills make of it?
Disgraced former banker Sean Fitzpatrick is effectively a co-owner of the huge office block where they work in London.
A statement of affairs at his bankruptcy hearing earlier this week revealed that Seanie had an investment worth €1,584,595 in the property, whose address is 1-19 Victoria Street, SW1.
David Arnold and Deirdre Foley’s Dublin-based property investment and development firm D2 Private bought the building for £175m in early 2008 and it is understood that Fitzpatrick has a small stake in the property through an investment with the firm.
At the time, the annual rent of £9.05m for the 335,000sq ft office block – one of the largest single-let buildings in London’s West End – represented a yield of 4.75 per cent.
What will happen to Fitzpatrick’s share in the investment remains to be seen, but presumably British taxpayers – not to mention Chancellor George Osborne and his boss David Cameron – would be rather surprised to learn that he had one.
Although the lease runs until 2021, given the need to cut their government spending, perhaps they’ll make some choice comments at the next rent review in January 2011.