The team at Solgrid were delighted to welcome Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney TD to our premises in Loughrea, Co. Galway last week.
While onsite, Minister Coveney engaged in an lively discussion about the current energy industry and economic opportunities that exist within the space.
Solgrid CEO, Enda Broderick and General Manager, Aidan McCurtin shared additional insights with the Minister including certain challenges facing the sector, namely:
- Limited options to feed back solar energy to the grid for large corporations. A large portion of this surplus energy is dumped during non-manufacturing time.
- Lack of support and facilities for service startup businesses with no incubation spaces to nurture growth. Existing funding is tailored to manufacturing rather than services.
- Skills gap in sustainable energy academic training. Barriers still exist which lengthen the process of upskilling trainee electricians. There is a bottleneck with a lack of qualified skilled labour and electricians.
We were delighted to illustrate the work we have been doing with Solar Power Panels (PV), our partnership with QCells and our emphasis on high quality products to generate sustainable, long-lasting change for businesses.
Minister Coveney also took the opportunity to visit the various teams within Solgrid to learn more about our values and chat with our workforce. We look forward to meeting again in the future to continue the conversation and facilitate real change in the industry.
Pictured above: Ciaran Cannon (TD Galway east), Enda Broderick (Solgrid CEO), Jimmy McClearn (Galway County Councillor) , Minister Simon Coveney, Aidan McCurtin (Solgrid General Manager)
