Dempsey Welcomes Commitment to Renewable Energy in Budget 2007

Noel Dempsey T.D., the Minister for Communications, Marine & Natural Resources today declared that he was delighted with the commitments contained in Budget 2007 for boosting renewable energy in Ireland over the coming year.

“Budget 2006 initiated a number of schemes aimed at supporting the development of renewable energy in Ireland, now the Budget for 2007 builds on and expands some of the most successful of these scheme,” said the Minister.

Greener Homes Scheme

The Greener Homes Scheme was introduced earlier this year, primarily to raise the awareness among consumers of renewable energy technologies that could be put to practical use in the home and to stimulate the market for these domestic renewable technologies. It did this by providing grants to individual householders to install renewable energy technologies in their home such as wood pellet boilers, solar panels and geothermal heat pumps.

“The Greener Homes scheme has proved an enormous success with SEI having received nearly 10,000 applications to date. Budget 2007 proposes to build on this success by allocating a further €20 million over the next three years to the scheme. To put that in perspective it will result in additional emissions savings for Ireland of over 17,000 tonnes of CO2 per year,” said Minister Dempsey.

Bioheat Programme

The Budget also expands the scope of the existing bioheat commercial programme by €4m next year. This will add solar and heat pump technologies to the scheme and encourage mixed technology deployments under the scheme. This will allow the combination of solar panels for hot water heating which then could be supplemented by a wood-pellet boiler for winter heating requirements.

“Crucially this additional funding will enable the bioheat scheme to be extended to the non-commercial, voluntary sector such as clubhouses and community halls. There are thousands of these facilities throughout the country and by providing them with a real renewable energy alternative we can continue to demonstrate to people that renewable energy technologies work at a practical level and can mean reduced energy costs,” continued the Minister.

Industry Energy Agreements

Budget 2007 allocates €3m in investment next to allow Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI) to extend the scope of their energy agreements with firms. The expanded energy agreements scheme will allow SEI to engage with firms in direct relationships. This will permit SEI to focus on a targeted and structured approach to energy efficiency and provide tailored energy advice to individual firms.

“This move to direct engagement in 2007 will mean more than 4 times the number of firms participating in existing energy agreements, a combined energy consumption of €350M p.a., can now avail of the benefits of these agreements. The scheme will help firms, particularly small and medium enterprises which do not have dedicated energy management facilities, meet the challenge of higher energy charges while retaining their competitiveness,” said Minister Dempsey.

“The recently published energy Green Paper proposes that Ireland should become the “Renewable Energy Island”. We have one of the richest potential renewable energy resources in Europe - wind, ocean and bio-energy. The measures contained in today’s budget, combined with the increases announced in the estimates, will ensure that these resources are put to good use and ultimately we achieve our objective of building a sustainable energy future for Ireland,” concluded the Minister.

ENDS