Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 7 November 2012
122. Deputy Michelle Mulherin asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the progress that has been made towards our renewable targets for transport and the amount of oil consumption that has been displaced as a percentage of the total domestic transport energy market over the past few years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48774/12]
View answerThe Mineral Oil Tax Relief (MOTR) schemes, which were introduced in 2005 and 2006 and ran until 2010, and the Biofuel Obligation Scheme were measures introduced to incentivise the use of biofuels in Ireland.
The Biofuel Obligation Scheme was introduced in July 2010 to underpin delivery of the mandatory EU target of 10% renewable energy in transport by 2020. The obligation currently requires that the amount of biofuel brought to the market is not less than 4.166% of the relevant disposal of petroleum road transport fuels. In 2011, the total amount of petroleum motor fuel placed on the market was 4,276 million litres of which 145 million litres or 3.39% were biofuel, which equated to 2.7% of the total energy requirement in road transport and which displaced approximately 115 million litres of petroleum fuels. Taking into account the double certificates issued for biofuel produced from wastes a total of 194 million biofuel certificates were issued in 2011 which equates to 4.54% of relevant disposals during the year. The Biofuel Obligation will increase over time (with the first increase happening in 2013) requiring suppliers of road transport fuels to make certain that even higher volumes sold are biofuel.
Prior to the commencement of the MOTR schemes and the Biofuel Obligation Scheme, market penetration of biofuels in Ireland was almost non existent but since their introduction the energy supplied by biofuels in road transport has risen steadily each year from less than 0.1% in 2006 to 2.7% in 2011.
