Do Sustainable Energy Communities influence or lead to private energy upgrade investments?

Background

SEAI’s Energy Policy and Programme Evaluation Unit published its first Focused Impact Study, Sustainable Energy Communities: Understanding their Formation and Progression to Individual Action, in March 2025. Using the data available to us, we examined the evolution of the Sustainable Energy Community network, the prevalence of communities in particular locations, and the extent to which communities might be stimulating uptake across multiple household-focused national grant programmes, including home energy upgrades, solar PV and electric vehicles. 

Objectives of the Sustainable Energy Communities programme

The Sustainable Energy Community programme is designed to mobilise local communities to take actions that transform Ireland’s energy systems. Actions range from community-led renewable energy projects, to individual energy-saving behaviours in households. The programme’s primary objectives are to: 

1. Establish up to 1,500 sustainable energy communities by 2030; 
2. Support communities to develop energy management skills and knowledge;
3. Accelerate and increase uptake of SEAI grants; 
4. Grow community involvement in the National Retrofit Programme;
5. Expand Sustainable Energy Community participation and leadership of Community Energy Grant projects; 
6. Enable communities to participate in available community grant schemes, where knowledge and capacity of the community would otherwise be lacking;
7. Market successful demonstration projects to encourage replication. 

Some objectives are easier to measure than others. While we endeavour to assess our programmes against all their objectives, in the short term we must focus on the limited data available to us. In this study, we carried out two analyses. In the first, we assessed the growth in SECs and further growth potential (objective 1 in the above list). To do this, we examined data on where and when SECs were established, and we looked at the characteristics of the populations associated with those areas. In the second analysis, we assessed the engagement in SEAI grants, primarily grants that contribute to the National Retrofit Programme, among residents in SEC areas (objectives 3 and 4). 

Patterns of growth in the number of SECs

In the first analysis, we found that SECs are more likely to form in areas with certain broad population characteristics.  On average, they are in middle-class rural areas with relatively high employment levels in agriculture and skilled trades. This could indicate that SECs are more likely to form by leveraging stronger community connections present in rural areas compared to urban areas. 

SEC areas also have on average, more people of retirement age and fewer households with children. A possible interpretation is that SECs have been more successful establishing themselves in areas with a sufficient population of residents at a lifecycle stage where their time is less dedicated to family responsibilities, such as at retirement age. 

Finally, SECs are also more likely to form near a pre-existing SEC, suggesting a spill over effect of SECs in terms of awareness-raising in the broader community. While the report doesn’t directly address Objective 7 in the list above, this might indicate that the efforts by existing SECs to market their successes has, indeed, influenced surrounding areas. 

Uptake of SEAI grants and engagement in the National Retrofit Programme

In the second analysis, we measured the uptake of energy saving projects, in terms of value of grants awarded, in the areas surrounding each SEC in each year from five before to five years after its formation. We then compared that to uptake in areas without any SEC nearby, making this a “staggered difference-in-differences” analysis.  The approach is staggered in that we’re analysing SECs that form across a range of points in time, rather than all at once. The results of this analysis give us an estimated profile of the average effects of an SEC on grant uptake in each year before, and each year after it was first formed.  

Better Energy Homes and Solar PV:

In the results, we could see a clear increase in the total value of grant applications for Better Energy Homes grants and solar PV grants in the years after SEC formation. The straightforward conclusion would be that SECs raise awareness in their surrounding areas of the grant supports available to homeowners, and this drives up interest and individual action. 

Better Energy Warmer Homes scheme:

We also examined the SEAI Warmer Homes Scheme, which provides fully funded energy upgrades for homeowners in receipt of certain welfare payments. However, here we found no strong relationship between SEC formation and any change in application rates, very likely due to the long lag time from application to award in the Warmer Homes Scheme.  

Electric vehicles grant scheme:

Finally, we examined Electric Vehicle grants, with the surprising finding that the value of EV grant applications was relatively lower in the years after SEC formation, compared to before. This conflicts with the hypothesis about SECs raising awareness, because we know from documentary evidence that SECs do spread information about EV grants.  

The interpretation here is not obvious. First, it could be that when households invest in home energy upgrades, this leaves them with limited resources remaining to spend on an electric vehicle. In other words, in the years after SEC formation, residents in the surrounding area would be influenced by information they receive to re-prioritise how they engage in the energy transition. 

However, it could also be that new cars are purchased so seldom, that the effect we’re seeing in the first few years after an SEC is formed couldn’t possibly have been caused by it. This suggests that we should not have been able to detect a direct effect, and that any effect we did find must have been caused by something else entirely. For example, it could be that certain regions are experiencing changes in demographics, socioeconomics, attitudes, or behaviours that both lead to SECs being formed and lead to a relative decrease in EV grant uptake. 

Lastly, it’s possible that the patterns of uptake are not related to SECs at all, but rather that the emergence of SECs has been uneven over time, and so has the uptake of EV grants. Furthermore, that unevenness might just happen to line up in a way that suggests a relationship exists where, in truth, it isn’t there at all.  

Establishing the effect of SECs

This is all part and parcel of a statistical analysis. We can never be fully confident of the findings. However, we can quantify our confidence. In this case, we found a level of confidence of at least 95%, that the formation of an SEC influences the uptake of SEAI energy grants in its surrounding area for multiple years thereafter. 

However, even if we’re 95% confident a relationship exists, the evidence is not enough to confirm that SECs were certainly the cause of those changes. To assess causality, we require different kinds of evidence, such as surveys, interviews, and narrative reconstructions – generally, we need to take a more qualitative approach to probe into what the SECs do in detail, and how people respond to them. Future work at SEAI on the SECs’ impacts will apply these approaches and address the full range of objectives of the programme, leading to new insights for how we can engage communities and support them to start their energy journey.