Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 2 June 2022
116. Deputy Brian Leddin asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications his overall ambition for community energy here; the steps that he will take to ensure that barriers to progress in the delivery and implementation of community-led renewable energy projects are identified, evaluated and addressed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28371/22]
View answerThe Climate Action Plan 2021 outlines indicative renewable energy targets of up to 8GW of onshore wind and 1.5-2.5GW of solar by 2030. Of this, 500MW is targeted to come from Community-based projects.
Community supports under the Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) will be key components of delivering on this ambition. The RESS is an auction-based support scheme which invites grid-scale renewable electricity generation projects to compete to receive a guaranteed price for the electricity they generate. The scheme includes a dedicated Community Category developed specifically to allow communities and citizens to participate in and benefit from RESS. In the first RESS auction, 7 Community projects were successful, two of which were 100% community owned, the remainder being at least 51% community owned. For RESS-2 onwards all community projects must be 100% community owned. There were 10 Community projects identified as provisional winners in the recent RESS-2 auction.
Furthermore, the Community Enabling Framework includes a package of enabling supports including technical, financial and legal services which has been rolled out to assist communities in navigating the challenging terrain of electricity generation. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) is leading in implementing and facilitating these components of the framework. In 2022, €2 million in capital funding has been allocated to support the development of Community projects, which allowed the SEAI to roll out a trusted advisory service and enabling grants on 21st April 2022. These are vital supports to enable the growth of the nascent community renewable electricity generation sector.
The Climate Action Plan also commits to the development of a support scheme for small-scale generation (>50kW) to support the deployment of rooftop and ground-mounted solar PV in cohorts that are not as suited to other support measures. This will enable farmers, auto-generators and communities to maximise their participation in the energy transition. The design of the scheme will be progressed in 2022 and it is expected to become available in 2023.
