Repeated delays in updating the planning regulations required for a school to install a solar panel on its roof are making a mockery of the government’s commitment to climate action, an environmental organisation has said.
Schools across Ireland must secure planning permission in order to install even one solar panel on their roof. The panel can cost in excess of €10,000 and converts light into electricity and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2019, the Department of Housing agreed to review the solar panel planning exemptions with a focus on enabling increased self-generation of electricity. The review is now completed but the regulations are yet to be updated.
Friends of the Earth said the added cost and time associated with applying for planning permission made installing a solar panel “unfeasible” for many schools.
Jerry Mac Evilly, the head of policy at Friends of the Earth, said: “For more than three years now successive governments have failed to update planning regulations to support solar on schools, despite several commitments.
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“And in the past year the minister for local government has ignored deadlines without explanation, repeatedly regurgitated old updates and kicked out deadlines without explanation.”
Mac Evilly said the need for solar panels on public buildings was even more important now that gas and oil were “fuelling the Russian war-machine”.
He said: “We’re in the middle of an energy crisis here in the context of the Russia situation, and it’s important to end our gas dependency, but also more solar panels means less pollution emissions. In addition to that, there’s the societal value and community engagement of having a school put solar panels on roofs because it gets the rest of the wider community engaged and interested.”
Fiona O’Loughlin, a Fianna Fail senator, believes the government should pay for the installation of solar panels on school roofs. “We need to be doing more in terms of renewable energy and I feel that it’s quite expensive to get solar panels for public buildings,” she said.
“The Department of Education should be providing grants for schools to be able to financially pay for them. This would also show a very strong message to the students and the whole school community.”
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Last year Friends of the Earth ran a competition with eight schools to help them install solar panels on their roofs. Mac Evilly said all eight schools had been heavily delayed in their plans due to the planning requirements. The organisation has recently begun a campaign asking the public to email their local Fianna Fail TDs about the issue.
Mac Evilly added: “The Climate Action Plan published last December included yet another, delayed deadline for changing the regulations — stating that they would be changed in early 2022. But this new deadline was almost immediately dismissed, with the Department of Housing producing yet another delayed timeline of later in spring 2022 just a few weeks later. Our understanding is that the next step is a consultation on a related environmental assessment but this has been repeatedly kicked to touch.
“Friends of the Earth remains extremely concerned at the lack of progress and clarity and is calling on the minister for housing to commit to a clear date for when the updated planning regulations will come into force. Anything less merely amounts to yet more embarrassing and unacceptable dithering and delay.”
The Department of Housing said substantial changes to the current planning exemption thresholds for solar panels were proposed, as well as the introduction of new classes of solar panel planning exemptions for schools.
It said: “As required under planning legislation, the proposed exempted development regulations must be laid in draft form before the Houses of the Oireachtas and receive a positive resolution from both Houses before they can be made and the SEA [Strategic Environmental Assessment] process concluded. Accordingly, the process for finalising the solar panel planning exemptions will be completed in the coming months.
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“While these regulations are being advanced, this department is concurrently examining the scope to draft supplementary regulations to further expand the exemptions by way of reducing the proposed restriction zones around airports.”