Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 3 February 2021
37. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the savings made by the EEOS by type of customer, that is, commercial, private and energy poverty; and the social impact analysis and the average efficiency gain per customer, that is, average depth of retrofit. [5993/21]
Amharc ar fhreagra38. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the impact of the EEOS on customer bills. [5995/21]
Amharc ar fhreagraI propose to take Questions Nos. 37 and 38 together.
Under Article 7 of the European Union’s Energy Efficiency Directive, Member States are required to make a specified amount of energy savings that meet certain criteria defined by the Directive.
Ireland established an Energy Efficiency Obligation Scheme (EEOS) in 2014 in order to achieve a portion of these savings. An obligation scheme is a regulatory requirement on energy suppliers and distributors to help energy users save energy. This can be achieved by supporting the energy user (financially or otherwise) to implement energy saving practices or to carry out energy upgrades in their property.
Ireland’s energy efficiency obligation scheme is administered on my behalf by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. The scheme requires suppliers with a market sales volume in Ireland of greater than 600 GWh per annum to achieve savings. The amount of savings each obligated party is required to make is related to their overall market share. The amount of savings to be delivered is as follows: 75% in the non-residential sector, 20% in the residential sector, and 5% among customers in energy poverty.
Preliminary data indicates that between 2014-2020, the EEOS successfully supported energy efficiency actions in more than 291,000 dwellings and 4,750 businesses, achieving final energy savings of over 3,450 GWh.
The achievement and average annual energy saving under each sector is:
- Energy Poor = 74,439[1] properties covered with an average saving of 3,304kWh per dwelling;
- Residential = 224,2241 properties covered with an average saving of 3,587[2] kWh per dwelling;
- Non-Residential = 750,000 kWh per site/premises (Non-residential projects have a large range with some below 10,000 kWh and some in excess of 100 GWH).
SEAI does not collect information from the obligated parties in relation to the cost of delivering savings under the EEOS. However, in 2017 the Commission for Regulation of Utilities published a report indicating that the average cost for electricity and gas suppliers to deliver a kWh of savings under the EEOS was 4.4c per kWh in 2015 and 5.6c per kWh in 2016. As a portion of all gas and electricity sales in those years this is equivalent to between 0.03c and 0.05c per kWh on the bill for commercial and domestic customers if passed on directly. It is up to each obligated party to decide how to fund these savings. Oil companies obligated under the scheme meet their costs through a levy of 0.12c per litre of oil sold.
Last year, the Department published a paper stating that Ireland would use an obligation scheme again for the period 2021-2030. An interim obligation scheme is now in place for 2021 and a public consultation on the design of the scheme to be implemented from 2022-2030 will be published later this month. The collection of cost data will be among the topics for consultation.
[1] Some homes have received support on more than one occasion. Total is just over 291,000 unique dwellings.
[2] For homeowners meeting the Energy Poor eligibility criteria the costs of the upgrades are fully subsidised for the occupant, whereas the residential occupants are expected to contribute to the costs, allowing deeper measures to be carried out. This explains the higher average saving in residential non-energy poor homes.
