Trevor Sargent
Ceist:109 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for Public Enterprise if she will introduce a system of grants to householders who install treble glazing, solar panels and domestic wind power units. [25716/01]
Written Answers. - Housing Grants.
The Irish Energy Centre implements initiatives on renewable energy and energy efficiency on behalf of the Department of Public Enterprise. At present it does not provide any direct support at an individual level.
The Government's Green Paper on Sustainable Energy, published by my Department in 1999, identified housing as an area requiring major deployment of innovation to improve its energy performance and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Following on from the Green Paper, in September of this year, I launched the RD&D House of Tomorrow programme which will be administered on my behalf by the Irish Energy Centre. The house of tomorrow programme offers support for research, development and demonstration projects aimed at generating and applying technologies, products, systems, practices and information leading to more sustainable energy performance in Irish housing. The main focus of the programme is on stimulating widespread uptake of superior energy planning, design, specification and construction practices in both the new home building and home improvement markets. The programme has a proposed budget of 21.1 million, £16.6 million, over the period 2001-06.
The programme will include three specific strands aimed at enhanced best practice and innovation in housing. The first of these will stimulate the design, development and construction of new housing across the country that will successfully incorporate energy efficient planning, design and construction practices superior to building regulations, Part L, requirements, acting as model examples to the new homes market as a whole. The second will produce a set of model examples of new housing across the country that incorporate superior new – or substantially new to the Irish market – energy technologies and practices in their planning, design, construction and energy systems, achieving energy and COf8>2 performance significantly superior to building regulations, Part L, requirements, and thereby help stimulate significant early uptake of such superior systems and practices in Ireland's new homes market. The adoption of more integrated sustainable energy design approaches is particularly encouraged. The third strand aims to generate and demonstrate innovating cost-efficient energy retrofit strategies, systems and products designed for Ireland's pre-1980 housing stock, acting as model examples to stimulate widespread uptake of similar practices across Ireland's home improvement market as a whole. These three strands together aim to support a total of 2,500 new build homes and the retrofitting of 500 homes with specific support funding and within regional spread criteria already set down.
Within these particular strands triple glazing and active solar space heating are among a long list of technologies that may qualify for support as part of an overall and comprehensive project selection and qualification process. However, I must emphasise that in all cases the programme will seek to support collectives of more than five dwellings. Therefore, no direct support at individual level is available or envisaged.