Decarbonising Ireland’s energy system

ESIPP team

• Principal Investigator: Professor Andrew Keane, Head of Energy Institute, UCD.
• Co-Principal Investigators: Professor Eoin Casey, UCD School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering; Professor Frank McDermott, UCD School of Earth Sciences; Dr Terence O'Donnell, UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

ESIPP industry partners

• AIB, EirGrid, Ervia, ESB, SSE, GlenDimplex Ireland.

ESIPP industry collaborators

• Bord na Mona; Climote; Cylon; Department of Communications, Climate Action & Environment; Economics for Energy; ElectroRoute; Enel X; EPRI, Met Éireann; Merck; Molloy Environmental Systems; Retrofit Energy; SEAI; Veolia.

NexSys team

• Details of the NexSys team and collaborators can be found on the (opens in a new window)project website.

Funding

• ESIPP received €11 million in funding through Science Foundation Ireland’s Strategic Partnership Programme (2015-22), with five industry co-funding partners and one philanthropic donation.
• NexSys received €16 million in funding through Science Foundation Ireland’s Strategic Partnership Programme (2022-26), with nine industry co-funding partners and one philanthropic donation from David O’Reilly, Chair of UCD’s Energy Institute Advisory Board.
• The nine industry co-funding partners include Ireland’s leading energy providers: EirGrid, ESB Group, Davy, Atlantic Hub, CIE, RWE, EPRI, Gas Networks Ireland and SSE Airtricity. In addition, NexSys has an extensive list of collaborating partners, which will help the team provide an evidence base for policy and service delivery.

Selected policies and strategies informed by ESIPP

• (opens in a new window)Climate Action Plan 2021. Two ESIPP Academics (Lisa Ryan and Damian Flynn) chaired the development of an updated version.
• (opens in a new window)Dublin Climate Dialogues Conclusions Document, with Professor Keane. The conclusions were formally presented to the UK COP26 Presidency as a direct input to the COP26 discussion.
• (opens in a new window)UCD Energy Institute Insights Series.
• (opens in a new window)The State of Play in Electric Vehicle Charging Services: Global Trends with Insight for Ireland. This policy report influenced Irish government policy on EV charging infrastructure.
• (opens in a new window)SEAI's BER Map. This freely available retrofit mapping  tool was developing using the extensive knowledge of the GIS modelling techniques built up within the ESIPP programme.

Selected media appearances

• (opens in a new window)Filling your car is becoming very, very expensive - here's why, The Journal, 2023
• (opens in a new window)UCD study says integrated pan-EU energy grid could reduce costs by 32pc, Silicon Republic, 2022
• (opens in a new window)Prof Andrew Keane: Ireland has potential to deliver more clean energy than it can consume, Irish Examiner, 2021
• (opens in a new window)State facing pressures of global needs data centres serve, Irish Times, 2021
• (opens in a new window)Zipp Mobility partners with UCD Energy Institute to make e-scooters safer, RTÉ, 2021
• (opens in a new window)Trinity researchers aiming to develop environmentally friendly cooling solutions for data centres, Irish Tech News, 2018

Academic outputs

• A full list of ESIPP outputs, including conference papers and journal articles, can be found on (opens in a new window)the UCD Energy Institute website.