Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 4 November 2004
138 Mr. J. O’Keeffe asked the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the position in relation to the allocation of the additional 140 MW of renewable energy under AER VI; and if it is his intention to encourage small-scale procedures in relation to this allocation and under other aspects of renewable energy policy. [27729/04]
View answerThe Green Paper on Sustainable Energy 1999 established a target to add 500 MW of new renewable energy based electricity generating plant to the electricity network by 2005. Subsequently the market was notified of proposals to allocate support for a further 140 MW of AER projects generally and 50 MW and 28 MW for offshore wind energy and biomass fed combined heat and power, CHP, projects respectively, subject to state aids clearance.
The 500 MW target had prior EU state aids clearance. The necessary state aids clearance for the additional capacities was received recently and I will shortly announce the allocations, by category and applicant, of all the remaining unallocated capacity. I cannot comment further until a formal decision is made. However, once that decision is made, formal allocations within categories to individual projects will be done in accordance with the published AER VI reserve lists. These reserve lists are available on my Department's website, www.dcmnr.ie
