ECR Member Arnold Hatch (Alderman for Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon) participated in a seminar entitled "Energy, education and sustainability", which took place on 8 November in the Austrian region of Burgenland. His contributions focused on Northern Irish experiences with decentralised and renewable energy.

 The Austrian region of Burgenland is self-sufficient in terms of electricity generation and invests heavily in both renewable energy and energy efficiency. That is why Mr Hatch underlined that "Burgenland is an excellent example of how bottom-up solutions can lead to a clean energy transition". He said that also in Northern Ireland many investments were being carried out in the renewable energy field.

 "Northern Ireland currently has an ambitious 40% target for electricity consumption to be generated from renewable sources by 2020. We have achieved much progress since 2005 when only 3% of our electricity was generated from renewables", he explained.

 Mr Hatch added that he is convinced of the need to invest in clean and indigenous sources of electricity, but that special attention needs to be paid by local politicians to the financial impact of their decisions on those who suffer from energy poverty.

 Another topic raised by Mr Hatch in Burgenland was the benefits of small-scale onshore renewable-energy generation systems. "Although there are different views about this in different countries and regions", he said, "in the case of Northern Ireland most experts agree that small-scale systems have brought significant benefits to our local farms and industry".