Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 6 November 2018
817. Deputy Tom Neville asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if the introduction of incentives to encourage the use of biofuels will be considered; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44764/18]
View answerThe Biofuels Obligation Scheme, administered by the National Oil Reserves Agency, is the principal support for the uptake of biofuels in Ireland. The scheme was introduced in 2010 and requires suppliers of road transport fuel to ensure that biofuels make up a certain percentage of annual fuel sales. It is a certificate based scheme with two certificates awarded per litre of sustainable biofuel if that biofuel is produced from wastes or residues and one certificate per litre for all other sustainable biofuels. For each calendar year, a fuel supplier must hold sufficient biofuel obligation certificates to demonstrate compliance. The number of certificates required is determined by the biofuel obligation rate, which is currently set at 8%. This means that at the end of 2018, a fuel supplier must hold 8 biofuel certificates for every 92 litres of fossil fuel they place on the road transport fuel market this year.
In 2017 the Biofuels Obligation Scheme resulted in over 225 million litres of biofuel being placed on the market in Ireland leading to over 7% renewable energy use in the transport sector compared to the 10% target for 2020 under the Renewable Energy Directive.
In April 2018, a Policy Statement on the Biofuel Obligation Scheme was published which set out six key actions that will be undertaken in the development of the scheme. This included an increase in the biofuel obligation rate to 10% by volume from 1 January 2019 and 11% by volume from 1 January 2020.
The first of these changes has been enacted by S.I. No. 169 of 2018. A draft Statutory Instrument will be published on my Department's website in relation to the increase to 11% from 2020. It is my intention that this legislation will be enacted early next year.
