18 minute read
Decarbonising transport
Northern Ireland’s Regional Transport Strategy is outdated and must be replaced by a green transport policy which reflects the aim of a carbon neutral transport system, a Stormont inquiry to explore the future pathway to decarbonising road transport in Northern Ireland has suggested.
Transport is Northern Ireland’s second highest greenhouse gas emitting sector, estimated to represent around 20 per cent of emissions, behind agriculture’s 26 per cent. However, unlike the other high emitting sectors of agriculture and energy generation, which continue to decrease emissions since 1990 baseline figures, transport emissions continue to grow and are up an estimated 21.5 per cent since 1990. Unsurprisingly, the majority of emissions in transport are from petrol and diesel in road transport.
In June 2019, the UK passed the Climate Change Act introducing a net zero target by 2050 and this was subsequently followed by Transport Decarbonisation Plan (TDP) in July 2021, with a heavy focus on road transport. Prior to the TDP, the UK Government had already committed to end the sale of petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030 but the plan added to this by proposing to phase out the sale of new diesel and petrol heavy goods vehicles by 2040. In response to the UK’s proposals, the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Infrastructure Committee launched an inquiry into decarbonising Northern Ireland’s road transport, a report on which was subsequently published in November 2021.
Critical to tackling emissions in transport in Northern Ireland is addressing Northern Ireland’s car dependency. Between 2017 to 2019, over 70 per cent of all journeys were taken by car, a car dependency legacy which has spanned over 20 years.
In 2015, a report by the Northern Ireland Audit Office assessing the Regional Transportation Strategy (2002) concluded that a desired modal shift had not been achieved, recommending higher levels of investment and innovation. While recent years have seen a reduction in the gap between expenditure in public transport and active travel narrowed, evidence to the committee’s inquiry suggests that short-term targeted investment on the existing network, enhancements to active travel
infrastructure and a greater focus on behavioural change programmes can deliver more immediate impacts than significant investment in, for example, expanding the railway and Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) networks.
To this end, the committee report suggests that “the current Regional Transportation Strategy is outdated and needs to be replaced by a green transport policy that reflects the aim of a carbon neutral transport system in Northern Ireland”. Adding that such a strategy must clearly map out how a modal shift to public transport and active travel will contribute to achieving this goal.
At the end of 2021, the Department for the Economy published Northern Ireland’s long-term Energy Strategy and followed this up with an action plan for 2002. Under one of the five key principles of the strategy, do more with less, the strategy pledges to develop and deliver a local Transport Strategy by the end of 2022/23.
Additionally, the strategy outlines the need to create a roadmap to a cleaner, greener transport system to support the transition to electric vehicles over the next decade. To this end, the Executive has committed to delivering an EV Charging Infrastructure Plan in 2022 and review how lowering carbon emissions from transport can assist with decarbonisation plans and monitor progress.
The committee’s report emphasises the timely need for publication and implementation of plans, recognising that despite significant volumes of evidence, finalisation and stakeholder engagement could take time. Interestingly, the report raises questions around whether the Department has the expertise resource to deliver such plans. The report asks: “Should a new branch, dedicated to transport decarbonisation and built around experienced personnel be set up to deliver these proposed measures?”
On ultra-low emission vehicles, for which Northern Ireland has the lowest penetration in the whole of the UK, the report suggests that the introduction of support measures, as has been done to success in other parts of Europe, should be explored.
Northern Ireland has the lowest number of both standard (300) and rapid (20) charging points of any UK region. The ratio of 17 and 1.1 per 100,000 respectively, is significantly lower than the European Commission recommendation of one public recharging point per 10 electric vehicles.
On addressing barriers to ULEV take up, including the inadequacy of Northern Ireland’s public transport network, even to meet current demand the report acknowledges work underway by the Department to identify what charging infrastructure will be required and stresses the importance of engagement with EV owners. Emphasising the need for a plan to be brought forward addressing the condition of the current network and the extent of the required expansion up to 2030, it says: “This will be critical both to ensure an operational network for existing EV adopters and to allay doubts held by prospective new EV users.”
The power of water
Head of Energy at NI Water Damien O’Mullan; NI Water’s Chief Executive Sara Venning and Director of Business at NI Water, Alistair Jinks.
The volatility of Northern Ireland’s fossil fuel dependence to global challenges is emphasising the need to quicken the transition to renewables and NI Water has an important role to play in a future green economy.
Sometimes the world moves faster than we think. Events occur that crystallise long-term trends into a few short weeks rather than the months and years we had been expecting.
Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is one such event. First and foremost it dislocated the lives of millions of Ukrainian families who have suffered terribly. It has also recast geopolitics and, in particular, the global energy market and that has implications for everyone, including here in Northern Ireland. Even before the invasion, global energy prices had rocketed causing huge problems both for individual consumers and for organisations such as NI Water, Northern Ireland’s largest electricity user.
Because the price we pay for electricity is currently tied to the global gas market that has inevitably meant a huge, unplanned rise in costs which, equally inevitably, has put considerable pressure on the budget. so, fast forward the recognition that, collectively, we need to speed up the transition away from our dependence on fossil fuels.
That transition had already begun because of climate change. What the invasion has done is crystallise the economic and political reasons why we need to move faster, the reasons why Northern Ireland needs to create its own indigenous energy system, using its own natural resources to deliver power that we can reliably depend on, and afford.
We need to protect ourselves and our economy from the volatility of the fossil fuel market as well as end the threat it poses to our environment. The need to address climate change and economic necessity now point in the same direction. We need to make the transition to a renewable energy system sooner rather than later.
But we also need to use the transition as an opportunity to power the 10X economy in Northern Ireland by driving green growth, building the skills and experience to compete globally in the cluster of zero carbon, transport, energy and agri-food.
In Northern Ireland, we are fortunate to have the natural resources to be able to do that and the opportunity to harness those resources as part of a common plan which focuses the efforts of government, the private sector and utilities such as NI Water to make the change a reality.
In November 2021, we published our roadmap setting out how NI Water could use its assets to help make the transition through a combination of technical innovation, collaboration with government, the other utilities and the regulator, and the right sense of urgency.
Ukraine has only increased that need to act sooner rather than later, but the work we have done since November has also highlighted the further potential for innovation and collaboration.
The key challenge both in terms of decarbonisation and ending our economic dependence on fossil fuels is to create an energy system which mirrors the benefits fossil fuels historically delivered, without the downsides both in terms of the environment and cost.
That means creating a system which guarantees security of supply at an affordable price. The challenge for renewable energy is how to do that when the natural resources it depends on aren’t there, when the sun doesn’t shine, and the wind doesn’t blow.
That requires both an increase in the overall supply of renewable energy, and better ways to store and use it to even out the balance between that supply and demand.
NI Water can help with both generating more renewable energy and its storage.
With 11,000 hectares of land we have the space to take advantage of Northern Ireland’s biggest energy resource, the wind. Constructing wind farms to take advantage of that resource would allow NI Water not just to reduce our demand on the rest of the electricity system, but also to considerably reduce our operating costs on an on-going basis, so lessening our burden on the taxpayer and the Executive’s yearly budget.
Hydrogen
Installing electrolysers at our waste water treatment plants could also help use, store and apply our renewable energy resource more efficiently throughout our economy.
The green hydrogen electrolysis produces could be used to help our transport system make the transition from diesel, helping our buses go green as well our tractors and lorries.
It could also be used in our gas network to help it make the transition, as well as to power the backup generators the renewable energy system will require to balance supply and demand.
But electrolysis can also help drive another key element of the 10X economy, the ability for our towns and cities to grow organically. At present, because of an historic failure to invest, that ability is constrained by a lack of capacity at our waste water treatment works. used to increase the capacity of existing treatment plants so increasing the potential for growth in housing and business development.
NI Water carried out and successfully completed a 10KW electrolyser pilot last autumn at Kinnegar and is now testing the potential for further deployment with a bigger scale 1MW demonstrator model in Belfast.
We are also exploring the potential to use our reservoirs as large energy stores which could be deployed during prolonged periods when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun shining. The water is pumped to higher ground when, as at night-time, there is surplus capacity from wind-farms and then released when needed by the electricity network.
NI Water will continue to develop these and other schemes to help Northern Ireland make the transition from fossil fuels to a totally renewable energy system.
But as the Power of Water report last autumn recognised, they will only be successful as part of a common plan for Northern Ireland which integrates NI Water’s approach with that of the Executive, government departments, the regulator, the other utilities and the private sector.
We all need to align both our thinking and what we do in practice. A combination of technology, digitalisation and our joint need to meet the challenges of climate change and the energy crisis means not just that there is a necessity to do so, but also an opportunity to harness the synergies that working together could deliver for the 10X economy.
That means changing not just how we think and operate as utilities, but also the priorities we are set by government and how we are funded to deliver those.
There are clear signs that government here in Northern Ireland recognises that and NI Water will do all we can to help turn that recognition into practical reality.
Dunore Solar Farm.
Alistair Jinks, Director of Business at NI Water.
W: www.niwater.com
Infrastructure: A shared island
Through its Shared Island Fund, the Irish Government has committed to making €500 million in capital funding available out to 2025 for investment in collaborative north/south projects, including infrastructure aimed at building a more connected Ireland.
In December 2021, Taoiseach Micheál Martin marked one year of the Shared Island Initiative with a week of events surveying the work that has been done and remains to be done through government investment.
Key to the building of a more connected Ireland are the infrastructure projects being undertaken with funding from the Government’s Shared Island Fund and other sources. All-island investment was one of the more notable revisions within the Irish Government’s revised National Development Plan (NDP) published in October 2021, where a commitment to allocating ring-fenced capital resourcing for all-Ireland investment to 2030 “at least at the current level of the Shared Island Fund”.
Shared island investment priorities in the NDP include:
• the creation of an Ireland-wide greenway network;
• the enhancement of rail connectivity;
• coordinated investment in the rollout of electric vehicle charging networks;
• funding all-island climate actions;
• enhancing support for all-Ireland enterprise development;
• the creation of new all-island research centres; and
• the further development of thirdlevel education infrastructure in the north west; and new cross-border infrastructure built and natural heritage initiatives.
Ulster Canal
Thus far, the Shared Island Fund has been allocated to numerous infrastructure projects, chief among them the revitalisation of the Ulster Canal. In April 2021, the Irish Government announced over €12 million in funding for Phase 2 of the Ulster Canal, supported by €6 million from the Shared Island Fund. The Ulster Canal runs through counties Armagh, Fermanagh, Tyrone, and Monaghan, but the last boat sailed on the waterway in 1931. The project aims to reopen the canal between Clones and Clonfad, County Monaghan.
Funding from the Rural Regeneration Development Fund and from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage was also secured to progress the project. A further €1 million from the Shared Island Fund has been approved to undertake the feasibility and preconstruction stages for Phase 3 of the restoration project.
Narrow Water Bridge
Also funded is the Narrow Water Bridge project, brought to tender by a July 2021 allocation of €3 million from the Shared Island Fund. The project is a longstanding commitment of the Irish Government and is a key commitment of the New Decade, New Approach agreement. The Taoiseach has committed to providing further funding once final costs for the project are determined.
Planning permission is in place for a distinctive 280-metre cable stayed bridge, anchored by two towers at either end, for car or cycle traffic. It will connect the A2 Newry to Warrenpoint dual carriageway with the R173 Omeath and will have the ability to open to allow for passage of ships through and on to the Newry Canal.
Set to provide access to a range of cross border active travel and recreational activities including greenways, mountain bike trails, walking routes and beaches, it has been proposed that development and delivery of the project should be overseen by a new subgroup of the North-South Infrastructure Group, comprising Louth County Council and Newry Mourne and Down District Council.
Subject to all the required processes, construction of the project to begin 2023.
A5
Both the Irish Government’s Programme for Government and the revised National Development Plan includes a commitment to develop the A5 transport corridor. To date, the Irish Government has committed €75 million, first mooted in 2007, to the project but no financial allocation has yet been made through the Shared Island Fund.
In March 2021, Infrastructure Minister Nichola Mallon MLA reaffirmed her commitment to the A5 Western Transport Corridor Scheme while publishing a report on the proceedings of an inquiry from the Planning Appeals Commission (PAC).
A proposed new multi-million-pound A5 dual carriageway linking Derry to Aughnacloy in County Tyrone was one of the first major announcements of the new Executive in 2007.
However, the project has suffered a number of setbacks, including planning errors and legal challenges. On recommendation of the PAC, a fourth public inquiry is set to be reconvened later in 2022.
All-island Strategic Rail Review
Also, yet to be allocated funding of note from the Shared Island Fund is the recently announced All-island Strategic Rail Review. Jointly launched by the Irish Government’s Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan TD and Northern Ireland Minister for Infrastructure Nichola Mallon MLA in April 2021, the review seeks to examine the potential for high-speed rail and shaping and developing the rail network across Ireland.
The Strategic Rail Review will consider the rail network on the island of Ireland with regard to: improving sustainable connectivity between the major cities (including the potential for high-/higher speed); enhancing regional accessibility; supporting balanced regional development and considering rail connectivity to international gateways –sea and air ports, which will include examining the role of rail freight.
Research
One of the more significant allocations from the Shared Island Fund has been the €40 million pledged to the NorthSouth Research Programme in July 2021. The programme will “support the deepening of links between higher education institutions, researchers, and research communities on the island of Ireland, delivering all-island approaches to research and innovation, and [is] open to all disciplines and research areas”.
This comprehensive approach to research has already borne fruit with the National Economic and Social Council (NESC) having published a series of secretariat papers on the shared island concept as well as a report on collaboration on climate and biodiversity; the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has also published research on increasing cooperation, cross-border trade in services and foreign direct investment on both sides of the border. The NESC and ESRI plan to publish a comprehensive report to government on the Shared Island initiative and a report on education and healthcare respectively in 2022.
Sharon Smyth, Construction and Procurement Delivery; Noleen Bohill, Belfast City Council; Linda O’Hare, Business Services Organisation; Noel Brady, Consult Nb1; Lindsay Maguire, Cabinet Office and Ed Green, Cabinet Office
Sharon Smyth, Construction and Procurement Delivery, addressing delegates
Patrick Minne, CO3 and Orla Ward, 21 Training Northern Ireland Procurement delegates
Tony Murphy, Education Authority; Clive Stewart, Invest Northern Ireland; Noel Brady, Consult Nb1; Karen Rodgers, Farrans Construction and Hugh Carr, Scotland Excel Dean Campbell, Northern Ireland Water with Lewis Murray, Belfast City Council
Northern Ireland Procurement Conference
The Northern Ireland Procurement Conference recently took place in the Europa Hotel, Belfast on Thursday 24th March. The event brought together 200 procurement professionals who gained an insight into what effective public procurement means for organisations in Northern Ireland. Expert speakers included Sharon Smyth, Construction and Procurement Delivery; Linda O’Hare, Business Services Organisation; Lindsay Maguire and Ed Green, Cabinet Office; Hugh Carr, Scotland Excel and Karen Rodgers, Farrans Construction. A massive thank you to our conference exhibitors, speakers and delegates who joined us and made the conference a huge success.
Geoff Murphy and Michael Heery, Northern Ireland Audit Office
Early clarification of procedures reduces procurement challenges in Northern Ireland, says Lisa Boyd, Partner at Gateley Tweed.
Often tenderers don’t raise clarification queries for fear of “annoying” those later responsible for assessing their bids. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
The purpose of clarification is firstly, to ensure that tenderers have all the correct information and, secondly, to allow authorities opportunity to address any deficiencies before it gets too far along the road. Tenderers often know the service better than those procuring it and therefore are better placed to identify issues. Clarification is therefore an integral part of the procurement process and one that tenderers should fully engage in and not wait to see the results first.
No one would be surprised that authorities take advice on procurement procedures, strategies, contracts and documentation before going to tender. However, many tenderers set about reviewing tender documentation worth multi-millions themselves without any legal input. Commercial entities are unlikely to do this when contracting with another commercial entity so why take a different approach when entering a contract with a public sector body.
An early legal review of tender documentation and contracts can be a useful tool to identify clarification queries that should be sought from the authority. It can flag up potential issues that may arise both within the tender process and within the lifetime of the contract. It allows early resolution and seeks to avoid, or at least minimise, procurement challenges either at the award stage or on the amendment of contracts during their lifetime.
Tenders should be mindful that the time limit to issue a procurement challenge is generally 30 days from the date of deemed or actual knowledge. This generally means that issues arising in respect of the structure of tender cannot be raised at the time of standstill letter as they will be out of time. This further strengthens the importance of proper due diligence at the time of tender and can in some cases mean that proceedings must be issued before a tender has even been submitted.
Inevitably, clarification and due diligence of tender documentation by tenderers will not eliminate all procurement challenges but it could help to reduce them.
Gateley Tweed is running a series of free webinars on public procurement, primarily aimed at the tenderer perspective, to increase the understanding of the tendering process. Please register at www.gateleyplc.com/publicprocurement-webinars for further information.
Lisa Boyd, Partner T: 07706 320 748 E: lisa.boyd@gateleytweed.com W: www.gateleyplc.com
