Mr. Mike Quinn:

It is more economical for us to use domestically produced biomass than to import materials. We have given a commitment under NewERA that for every tonne of domestically produced biomass we will displace an imported tonne. Biomass has become an internationally traded commodity which means that ownership of an international biomass supply chain is a low-risk venture because if we do not consume the material in Ireland, we can sell it on the open market. A considerable number of economies are converting to biomass power stations and combined heat and power plants for district heating and other purposes.

The most recent energy crop programme involved miscanthus but it was a disaster. Farmers have long memories of it. We have been trying to get the willow programme off the ground for nearly five years but the fruit of our efforts is 650 acres, which is very disappointing. The other problem is that while willow needs to be grown on good land, there is a lack of willingness on the part of the farming community to lock up land for 15 to 20 years. We can, however, offer 15 to 20-year contracts for the willow because the power stations will need biomass over that period. I hope that will go some way towards encouraging cultivation. We have also been working closely with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to prepare a grant package. When one plants willow, there is no cashflow for the first three years but the crop can be harvested every second year after that. We are working to alleviate that cashflow problem upfront in order that farmers get an annual income from the first year for the crop.

That has been a major impediment in our experience. The proposal is in with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine at the moment. I gather the Department is very supportive of it and we hope to submit it to the Department of Finance for inclusion in this year's budget. That is one way in which the Government could help us to establish the willow industry. It is wide-ranging. We need 15,000 ha within 100 km of the power stations. That is the position in terms of biomass support.

There is grant support for the private forestry sector already. The problem with the private forestry sector at the moment is that it tends to be rather fragmented. The grant was for 7 ha blocks. When we met representatives from the UK-based company with which we work in this area we concluded that the minimum economically-feasible land area to harvest private forestry was approximately 20 ha. Therefore, we have to come up with a way of putting small co-operatives together to take close proximity 7 ha blocks and harvest them in one deployment. Some of the barriers include road access etc. There is some grant support available from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, but that will be one of the challenges. There are over 19,000 private owners of forestry in Ireland. It is incredibly fragmented. How we achieve scale to harvest private forestry is going to be a key challenge.

A question was asked about wind versus solar. Bord na Móna has the opportunity to roll out large-scale solar panels. I am unsure whether committee members have seen these panels. They are 2.5 m off the ground at the front and have a maximum height of 4 m at the back. They are relatively maintenance-free once we deploy them. They have halved in cost since 2008. We are talking about efficiencies of 11% or 12%. They are becoming very economical for western Europe. Next year's pilot will tell us a great deal about how effective those farms will be. We will be the first company in Ireland to deploy a solar farm on that scale. We have to work out how we are going to co-locate that with the wind farm and how that works from a grid perspective. That is a key point. This time next year we will know a great deal more about solar.

Would we opt for solar instead of wind? That is not our strategy at the moment. Our plan is to co-locate the solar farms with the wind farms. This has been a proven deployment option in Europe and we intend to do the same here. I do not have the figures on curtailment at the moment, but that is something I can come back to the committee on.

A question was asked about wind farm locations but I cannot give specifics on the matter. We have identified approximately 20 locations. I cannot tell the committee about them because we are in the process of looking at the land banks of Bord na Móna and Coillte as part of the joint venture announced last year. There are approximately 30 potential sites between the two companies. Whichever location we decide on, it is our intention by the end of this year to communicate the decision to the local community within the coming six months.