POWER-E-COM brings a community energy perspective to Ireland’s private wires discussion

Tipperary Energy Agency (TEA) brought the experience of Irish community energy projects into a discussion on private wire legislation in September 2025.

The engagement focused attention on a recurring POWER-E-COM finding: regulation can determine whether a technically sound community project becomes deliverable. Community groups often operate with volunteer boards and limited development capital while navigating processes originally designed around professional energy developers.

Through POWER-E-COM, TEA has been working with Community Power and Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) to understand these barriers from the perspective of real Irish projects. Grid access, connection costs, planning sequence, market participation and long-term revenue certainty repeatedly emerge as critical issues.

Private wire arrangements have the potential to create new ways of connecting renewable generation directly with demand. TEA’s community energy work highlights the importance of ensuring that emerging frameworks also consider Renewable Energy Communities and locally owned generation models.

The discussion formed part of a wider POWER-E-COM effort to bring practical experience from Irish SECs and RECs into policy conversations and to identify changes that can make the route from community ambition to energisation more realistic.

POWER-E-COM is a LIFE Programme project co-funded by the European Union under Grant Agreement 101120998.