In fairness to Deputy Ó Murchú he has been very assiduous and diligent on following this issue. The SEAI-led national heat study found that district heating can deliver enough decarbonised heat to meet a significant portion of Ireland's renewable heat targets. In this context district heating schemes are large-scale systems that are supplied by one or several centralised or decentralised heat sources and serve multiple buildings and multiple customers. This is a new concept to Ireland.
Group or communal heating schemes such as Carlinn Hall, and earlier Deputy Bacik mentioned some in her constituency, are smaller-scale systems that typically supply single buildings or complexes. In light of the issues faced by such group schemes an independent consultancy was commissioned by the SEAI to complete a report on the viability of retrofitting an existing communal heating system with a shallow geothermal energy source using Carlinn Hall as the case study.
The report will be provided in two parts. Recommendations will be made on heat network efficiency, options for a low-carbon heat alternative and the costs of installation and operation. The final draft of this initial element is due for review by the project steering group and is expected to be completed within the next month. The second part will extract the main learning on heat network decarbonisation in Ireland. This part is expected to be completed by the end of the summer.
I understand the report is behind schedule due to the complexity of assessing low-carbon technology applications for group heating schemes in an Irish context. In a short number of weeks we will have it and we will publish and share it. I hope we will put it to good use in many buildings where we can implement the solutions.