Informational overviews of the key coordination areas in Ireland's renewable energy and retrofit sector. These guides explain the landscape — our training programmes teach you how to navigate it.
The guides on this page provide an orientation to the main areas of project coordination in the Irish renewable energy and retrofit sector. They are informational in nature — explaining what each coordination area involves, what documentation is typically required and what challenges coordinators commonly encounter. For hands-on training in these areas, see our training programmes.
Onshore wind energy projects in Ireland involve a complex sequence of activities that must be carefully coordinated — from planning applications and grid connection agreements through to construction, commissioning and handover. The project coordinator's role spans the entire development timeline, managing the flow of information, documentation and decisions between the project owner, technical consultants, contractors and regulatory bodies.
Wind projects typically involve environmental impact assessments, planning conditions that must be tracked and complied with, grid connection agreements with EirGrid or ESB Networks, construction contracts with multiple specialist contractors, and commissioning documentation that must be completed before the turbines can connect to the grid.
Solar PV installation projects in Ireland range from single residential systems to large commercial rooftop arrays and ground-mounted solar farms. The coordination requirements differ significantly by scale, but all solar projects share common documentation requirements — grid connection notification or application, electrical installation certificates, BER impact assessments for residential installations, and in many cases SEAI grant documentation.
For residential solar under SEAI's Solar PV scheme, the coordinator must ensure that the installation meets the technical specifications required for grant payment, that the installer is registered with SEAI, and that the application documentation is complete and submitted in the correct sequence.
Larger commercial solar projects introduce additional coordination complexity — planning applications, structural assessments for roof-mounted systems, procurement of panels and inverters through supply chains that may span multiple countries, and the management of electrical contractors, structural engineers and commissioning engineers on site.
Home retrofit programmes — upgrading insulation, windows, heating systems and ventilation in existing homes — are one of the most documentation-intensive areas of the Irish energy sector. SEAI's retrofit schemes require a specific sequence of steps, each generating documentation that must be complete and accurate before the next step can proceed.
The One Stop Shop model, which assigns a registered provider to manage the entire retrofit journey for a homeowner, places particular demands on project coordinators. The OSS provider is responsible for the BER assessment, the works specification, contractor selection and management, quality assurance inspections, and the final grant claim — all of which require careful coordination and documentation management.
SEAI grant applications are declined or delayed most often not because the works were inadequate, but because the documentation was incomplete, submitted in the wrong sequence, or failed to demonstrate compliance with the specific requirements of the scheme. Understanding what SEAI requires — and when — is a fundamental coordination skill in the Irish energy sector.
Each SEAI scheme has its own documentation requirements, but common themes run through all of them: registered contractors, pre-works notification, post-works inspection, BER evidence where relevant, and a grant claim package that must be complete and accurate.
Effective SEAI documentation management involves setting up systems at the start of a project — not scrambling to assemble paperwork at the end. This means creating a document register, understanding what each document is, who is responsible for producing it and when it must be submitted, and tracking progress against that register throughout the project.
These guides explain the landscape. Our training programmes teach you how to navigate it — with hands-on practice using real documentation, scheduling tools and coordination frameworks specific to the Irish renewable energy sector.