Pat Gilroy, Chief Executive, Dalkia
Thank you. I suppose a big challenge to talk to you at this point and try and keep you awake so I might
mix the other part of my life into this to keep you a bit interested. I suppose that, I wasn’t going to really
talk that much about Dalkia but in Ireland today Dalkia is providing energy efficiency services at a
turnover of 110 million of energy efficiency services. So it is happening there is something happening
out there in the marketplace and we have over 2,000 district heating customers today. So there are
things happening there in that sector and really what I want to talk about is encouraging more people to
come on board the whole energy efficiency side because I think one of the things that came out for me
strongly today was an awful lot of talk about wind and that is fantastic and I have heard a number of
people say well, the number one thing is energy efficiency but it probably got less than 2% of the
airtime. And it’s not reality. When we say it is the number one priority, logic tells us that is the number
one thing to do. And it is the right thing to do but it is not what is happening. So I really want to talk
about that and how we should be making some of the decisions that we are making in terms of our
energy and our choices. One of the fundamental shifts that I think we need to do is to switch from
incentives that are based on rather than potential to incentives that are based on performance. We
shouldn’t be giving out money to people to build something that has the potential to deliver energy
efficiency, it should deliver it and then you get your benefit. And that is the way very successful schemes
are happening throughout Europe. I think the use of hydrocarbons are a reality and I was really excited
to hear so much talk about them and they are going to be with us for the medium term, probably for
most of all of our lifetimes. And it is the precious use of them that is something we really need to focus
on and there should be as much energy going into that as is going into the renewable piece because it
can have a dramatic effect if we really put the focus on it. But it’s hard. It is much easier to supply from a
big end renewables and then let the distributed piece happen. And I suppose this leads me on to my
second part. And I think, somebody said to me recently, that the 20th century will be defined by being
the century of the individual, it was me, myself and I. And the 21st is going to be defined by the
community, by society. We are going to get back to having to work together. We have no choice and
this whole piece about CO2 will only happen when society decides it is going to happen. The big top
down approach won’t work. We see with young children today that they are starting to interact, maybe
on a network, an IT network, but they are starting to interact and have global networks. And society and
really getting society going is the key for all of this. It is lovely for us to sit in here and talk about
renewables but at a very high level but the key piece is going to be around getting society to change the
way it is. So what I am going to really try and talk about here, I mean, one of the things we talk about on
the football team is the star of the team, is the team. And the star of the energy efficiency world will be
society. That is a fact. Nothing that we do here, unless we embrace society, is going to change. So I
would see, just very quickly, over the next four years, a change, we’re going to have, maybe in the next
10 years we will do the easy energy efficiency pieces. People at the moment, in the situation we are will
not do projects for CO2 benefit. We are deluding ourselves if we think they are going to do it. They will
do it to save money. So our focus has to be a message of saving money to get society going on this one.
As we move to the 20s, maybe the 30s, we may have a situation where maybe the CO2 part can really
become the focus because there is a difference. Society here is a bit disengaged from this because
people hear scare stories. Energy saving and saving money – people love it. CO2 saving, they think it
might cost them more money. And we need to make it clear that the two things can be different.
Generally where energy savings happen we will save money but connecting America to here, we are not
going to save any more CO2 but we might save money. We still use the same amount of money
potentially. So I think it is important that society begins to understand the difference between the two
and we really need to get out there and meet people and explain to them the simple things that they
can do. And really get it down to simple tasks and I think that is what will happen over the next ten
years. In the 20-30 period I think it will get a little bit deeper and we will have to go for bigger hits. The
CO2 piece will get even better. And then we are probably going back into a construction phase from 30-
40 where we will be looking to build zero carbon buildings. And then the final piece of 40 to 50 might be
having really deep retro-fit of the old stock that is left. And that maybe is the road that we are going to
get us to 2050. But I suppose the two key messages I would really like to get across here is that we have
to now take as much care of the hydrocarbon situation and what we do there and the second thing is
that we have got to engage with society to make energy efficiency happen. Thank you.