Debate contribution: Renewable Electricity Generation Bill: Second Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Daniel McCrossan on 8 September 2026.

MLA: Mr Daniel McCrossan
Party at the time: Social Democratic and Labour Party
Date: 8 September 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Executive Committee Business
Heading: Renewable Electricity Generation Bill: Second Stage
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5673884

Text

On behalf of the SDLP, I welcome the Bill and support its progression to this stage in the House. Northern Ireland has an enormous economic opportunity before us. Renewable energy, as Members have said, should not simply be viewed in isolation through a prism of climate targets. It is also a huge and significant economic opportunity — an opportunity to create considerable jobs, attract investment, support businesses, strengthen our rural economy and give households and employers greater protection from volatile global energy prices. Recent years have demonstrated just how exposed we are to that. War, international instability and disruption to global energy markets can very quickly translate into higher electricity bills for a family in Strabane or a business in Omagh. We cannot control international energy shocks, but we can control how exposed our people and society are to them. The more energy we generate here from our own renewable resources and at predictable long-term prices, the more resilient our economy can become. That matters enormously to businesses, because margins matter. For manufacturers, hospitality, retail, farming and, particularly, our agri-food sector, energy can be a significant operating cost and, indeed, has proven so over recent times. A sudden spike in prices can wipe out margins almost overnight, so energy policy is also economic policy and business policy. If Northern Ireland can offer businesses greater certainty and competitive energy costs, that can become part of our economic proposition. It can protect jobs, help existing businesses to expand and make Northern Ireland a more attractive place to invest in. That is why the SDLP supports the principle behind this important legislation.
Ambition, however, must be matched by delivery.
I declare an interest as the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee. The report from the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) on the energy strategy should serve as a wake-up call to the Department for the Economy. It found that around £107 million had been spent since 2020, yet progress against key targets was lagging behind considerably. By March 2025, just 90 GWh of energy savings had been delivered against an 8,000 GWh target. At that point, renewable electricity generation stood at 45% against the statutory target of at least 80% by 2030. It is important to point out that progress has been made, and progress should always be welcomed, but we could be much further ahead. The Audit Office's central criticism remains, however, that the pace of delivery from the Department for the Economy's energy division has been too slow. We have spent years talking about Northern Ireland's renewable energy potential, but we now need to realise that potential, and that means removing the barriers that prevent businesses from investing. As Members have highlighted, one of the biggest barriers is the planning system. I am not in any way advocating for a weakening of environmental protections or proper community consultation, but rigorous planning does not have to mean slow planning. Slow planning costs us all. Businesses that are prepared to invest millions of pounds, create employment and generate energy and opportunities here cannot be expected to wait years, trapped between planning authorities, statutory consultees and Departments, with one contradicting the other while MLAs in this House chase Departments to get responses. That is entirely unacceptable. On countless occasions, investors in the North have said that they cannot get over how difficult it is to get through the processes here.
I will indeed.
Absolutely. That continues to be the case, and that is an important point. Everyone has a right to object to anything about which they may have concerns by way of a judicial review. To digress slightly, the situation with the A5, for instance, causes me a huge amount of frustration, in that a small number of people can block an infrastructure project that will benefit the majority of people. The measure and the balance is not right, and the same potentially applies to projects such as this. As I said, we need to remove the barriers that prevent businesses from investing, and the planning system is key to doing that. Businesses that are prepared to invest all that money continue to criticise the system here for being too slow. The Minister for the Economy is here and is listening, as are departmental officials. We need clear timelines, faster statutory consultation, properly resourced planning services and much better coordination across government. The matter is not something that sits solely with the Department for the Economy. Rather, it is an Executive-wide priority, and it should be treated as such. The same applies to the electricity grid. There is little point in encouraging investment in renewable generation in this place if, at the very end of the process, a project cannot secure a viable connection. My friend Diana Armstrong made that point very well. Planning, grid infrastructure and energy policy must move together in order to achieve the goal. I also want to see ambition around the types of renewable energy that we support. We have a great opportunity — I would argue a unique one — in that way. Wind and solar energy will undoubtedly play a major role, and they do, but they cannot be the entire story. We need to be more ambitious. Northern Ireland has a huge agriculture and agri-food sector, which provides significant, increased opportunities around anaerobic digestion, biogas and biomethane. Agricultural food and other appropriate organic waste can be converted through anaerobic digestion into biogas, which can generate electricity and heat, or be upgraded to biomethane for injection into our gas network. That is not the technology of the distant future. Rather, it is already happening in our communities. It is happening in my constituency of West Tyrone, where biomethane is already being injected into the Northern Ireland gas network. We should be asking ourselves how we can turn that potential into an industry and a future for this place. Can we turn waste into energy? Look at how our councils have been managing waste. Where is the opportunity there? Where is the community benefit for our people? Exploiting that very important opportunity and turning waste into energy would feed into a community benefit on the ground and save local authorities and, indeed, ratepayers a huge amount of money. Can we create additional income streams for farmers? Can we create new rural businesses and new opportunities for places in west Tyrone, Fermanagh and elsewhere? Can we support our agri-food sector while addressing some of the environmental challenges facing agriculture with measures that are not so convoluted and full of hurdles? Can we keep in the Northern Ireland economy more of the money that we currently spend on importing energy? I believe that the answer to those questions can and must be yes. We should continue exploring the role of sustainable biofuels, particularly for businesses and sectors that are difficult or prohibitively expensive to electrify. We should recognise the contribution of small-scale hydro and remain open to emerging technologies in that regard. That is particularly important, because this legislation will not be stuck in time; it has to emerge and be forward-looking. We should not design today's legislation around today's technology. The framework must be flexible enough to accommodate the innovation of tomorrow. We are in a fast-changing system. Another important issue needs clarification, and I would welcome that from the Minister in her remarks. What will happen to Northern Ireland's existing renewable generators? The Northern Ireland renewables obligation has supported renewable generation for many years. While the scheme has been closed to new generating capacity for some years, existing accredited generators have continued to receive their renewable obligations certificates during their applicable support periods. Northern Ireland has a particularly significant number of small renewable generators who remain in a place of uncertainty. They are not all multinational energy companies, as Mr Frew pointed out. They include our farmers, small businesses, landowners and rural entrepreneurs, who invested their own money in renewable generation and were miles ahead of Departments here. As individual ROC entitlements eventually expire, we need to know what happens next. That is a critical question that the Department needs to address. The turbine does not suddenly stop because the ROC support ends. A hydro scheme does not suddenly stop producing electricity. Energy-producing plants do not suddenly come to a halt. What is the pathway for those generators? Can they access the new arrangements? Can they repower existing installations? Will the new contracts for difference model be genuinely accessible to smaller generators, or are we in danger of designing a scheme that works extremely well for a major developer proposing hundreds of megawatts of generation but that is particularly inaccessible to the ordinary farmer, SME, entrepreneur, community project or small hydro operator? We cannot leave our existing renewable generators stranded or without certainty for the future. They were among the people who invested in Northern Ireland's renewable energy transition long before it became the priority that it is today. Where those installations remain viable, we should consider how we retain that productive capacity and encourage sensible repowering and reinvestment. I therefore ask the Minister to provide clarity on the transition from ROCs and what assessment her Department has made of the impact on small and locally owned renewable generators.
I will indeed.

1,545 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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