Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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165. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the number of smart heating control grants awarded in 2020, 2021, 2022 and to date in 2023; the geographic spread per county; the average amount per grant; how much funding has been drawn down for smart heater control grants in the same period, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56128/23]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The installation of heating controls is one of the energy efficiency measures supported under the SEAI administered grant schemes. Heating controls are an excellent way to control a household's energy usage and improve comfort. A fixed grant of €700 is available towards the cost of installing heating controls.

The majority of grants for heating controls are paid out under the Better Energy Homes (BEH) scheme which provides individual grants for a range of measures, allowing homeowners to take a step-by-step approach to their retrofit. Figures from SEAI show, that under the BEH scheme:

• to date in 2023 (end November) 1,037 grants for heating controls
• in 2022, 1,602 grants for heating controls
• In 2021, 2,789 grants for heating controls
• In 2020, 7,173 grants for heating controls

Officials from my Department have asked SEAI to reply directly to the Deputy with the additional information sought for the period 2020-2023 regarding the number of heating controls installed under the other SEAI Residential and Community Energy Efficiency Schemes; the funding drawn down for heating control installations across all Schemes; and geographic spread of heating controls installations, in so far as it is available, as soon as possible.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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166. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he will report on the support scheme for renewable heat; how much funding has been allocated in 2020, 2021, 2022 and to date 2023; how much funding has been drawn down 2020, 2021, 2022 and to date in 2023; how many grants were awarded in the same period, in tabular form; the average amount per award; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56129/23]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The Support Scheme for Renewable Heat (SSRH) provides financial support in the adoption of renewable heating systems by commercial, industrial, agricultural, district heating and other non-domestic heat users.

The Scheme consists of two types of support mechanism: -

• An on-going operational support
• A grant to support investment in renewable heating systems using heat pumps.

Grants and Tariffs awarded and average award (2020-2023):

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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167. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he will report on the excellence in energy efficient design scheme; how much funding has been allocated in 2020, 2021 2022 and to date in 2023; how much funding has been drawn down 2020, 2021, 2022 and to date in 2023; how many grants were awarded in the same period, in tabular form; the average amount per award; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56130/23]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The EXEED grant scheme is designed for organisations planning an energy investment project, with grant support of up to €3m per project available. EXEED aims to support businesses and other organisations in adopting best practice approaches to energy efficiency at the design, construction and commissioning stage of projects. The first cycle of the grant scheme ran from 2016 to 2019. Following a detailed review during 2020 (the scheme was not open to applications in 2020), the scheme was re-launched in January 2021 for a further three years.

As part of the 2021 relaunch, it was agreed to carry out a mid-scheme review which resulted in a number of recommendations being made to address issues identified. The recommendations that were approved and launched in March 2023 included:

1. Suspending the use of the present value of carbon (using 2019 shadow price figures) when evaluating the value for money (vfm) of the grant and adopting a simplified vfm approach which capped grants based on a €/tCO2 saved by the project
2. Increasing maximum grant from €1M to €3M to ensure higher impact projects are delivered via the EXEED scheme
3. Applying a 2025/26 projected electricity emissions factor of 200 g/kWh for both electrical energy efficiency, and electrification projects in the evaluation process to increase the valuation of electrification projects

   EXEED Spend	2021	2022	2023 (YTD)	Total
   Capital spend (€m)	3.39	1.24	1.17	5.8
   Budget allocated (€m):	13.4 (re-profiled to €4.7m)	9.0 (re-profiled to €3m)	7.0 (re-profiled to €3m)	29.4 (10.7)
   No. of grants awarded	Stage 1 Letters of offer			172
   No. of grants awarded	Stage 2 Letters of offer			41
   Average amount per award	Stage 1			€13,000
   Average amount per award:	Stage 2			€159,000

Following the changes made in March 2023, SEAI have reported an increase in the scale and impact of projects being approved under the scheme. SEAI issued its largest ever grant offer under the EXEED scheme in November 2023 for €686,000 surpassing the previous largest offer issued in September 2023 for €559,000. There is also another stage 2 grant application request for over €1.5M working through the evaluation process at present (December).