I propose to take Questions Nos. 100 and 102 together.
Under Directive 2009/28/EC (the “Renewables Directive”), each Member State has been assigned a legally binding individual target for the development of renewable energy that they must achieve by 2020. The Directive provides a mechanism whereby renewable energy produced in one country cannot only be exported to another but can also be counted towards meeting that other country’s 2020 national renewable electricity target.
The United Kingdom Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Mr. Edward Davey MP, and I signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on energy cooperation on 24 January 2013. The MoU is publically available on my Department's website.
That Memorandum sent a strong signal of our shared interest in developing the opportunity to export green electricity from Ireland to Britain and will result in completion of consideration of how Irish renewable energy resources, onshore and offshore, might be developed to the mutual benefit of both countries. An agreed programme of work is already underway so as to prepare for the Inter-Governmental Agreement. This work programme includes economic analysis, addressing policy and regulatory questions and dealing with grid issues. There are very complex engineering and market issues to be teased out but the ambition is to settle on an Inter-Governmental Agreement in early 2014. A key objective, from an Irish Government perspective, is to realise the potential for investment, jobs and growth. The amount of energy to be procured by the United Kingdom, the sharing of the renewable energy credit, including the quantity and duration, and the mechanisms for sharing the resultant economic benefits, including an appropriate return to the Exchequer, are among the matters to be addressed ahead of signing any Inter-Governmental Agreement.
