The 2009 EU Renewable Energy Directive set Ireland a legally binding target of meeting 16% of our energy requirements from renewable sources by 2020 and in order to meet this target, Ireland is committed to meeting 40% of electricity demand from renewable sources, 12% renewables in the heating sector and 10% in transport. Ireland has made good progress with regard to renewable energy deployment. To date, wind energy has been the largest driver of growth in renewable electricity. Provisional figures provided by the SEAI for 2014 show that 8.6% of Ireland's overall energy requirement was met by renewable energy. In addition, SEAI has calculated that 22.6% of electricity, 6.6% of heat and 5.2% of transport were met from renewable sources.
In 2014, 22.6% of gross electricity generation was from renewables with the sub-categories listed in the following table.
|
Renewables % of Gross Electricity
|
22.6%
|
|
Hydro (normalised)
|
2.6%
|
|
Wind (normalised)
|
18.2%
|
|
Biomass
|
1.2%
|
|
Landfill Gas
|
0.5%
|
|
Biogas
|
0.1%
|
Electricity generated from renewable sources is playing an increasingly important role as part of our energy mix and has increased from 7.2% in 2005 to 20.9% in 2013. There are a range of policies in place to incentivise the increased use of renewable electricity. The REFIT schemes underpin the development of a range of renewable electricity technologies, including hydro, biomass combustion, biomass combined heat and power, landfill gas and onshore wind. These schemes close to new applications at the end of 2015. The cost effectiveness of support for renewables is a key consideration in the work now underway in the Department to consider the appropriateness and design of any new support scheme for renewable electricity. This will be available in 2016 subject to State Aid approval from the European Commission. The initial consultation period on the design of this scheme closed on 18 September 2015, however there will be two further opportunities for the public to contribute at key points in the design of the scheme.
Green House Gas emissions targets are a matter for my colleague the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government.
