Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will deal with the straightforward question first and then come back to the broader comments made by Deputy Smith and Deputy Lawless. Our overall renewable energy target for 2020 is 16%. For energy efficiency it is 20%, for renewable electricity it is 40%, for renewable heat it is 12% and for renewable transport it is 10%. The 10% target is legally binding; the overall 16% target is legally binding; the others we can chop and change, so to speak. Based on the current trajectory, it is expected that we will come in at 13.2% but, with policy implementation between now and 2020, we hope to come in at somewhere between 15% and 16%, so that is what we are working towards at present. Currently, based on 2016 figures published by the SEAI, we are at 9.4%. They are the answers to those questions.

I take the point that Deputy Lawless made about examples across Europe where they have run on 100% renewable energy for a day or two but I think people fail to realise that Ireland is actually a global leader in this. It is not acknowledged. Today we can take a 60% loading of variable renewable energy, which is wind in the main, on our grid, an isolated grid. There is no country in the world, no grid in the world, that can take that potential loading. Yes, across Europe they have had 100% renewables on a particular day but they are networked into other grids. They can do that. They can manage that variability quite easily because they are concerned with a Europe-wide grid. We have an isolated grid here. It is known globally as the Irish problem. We have already tested it on a loading of 65%. That will go live in the new year. Again, we will be the global leader in this regard, and our objective is by 2020 - in order to take 40% renewable electricity onto the grid, 36% of which is projected to be wind - to be able to manage a potential loading at any one time in the grid of 75% variable electricity. It is called the VS3 project and we expect to be doing that by 2020. Globally, everyone is looking to Ireland as to how we are doing this. There was a major international conference in Trinity College earlier this year to which all the grid operators from around the world came because they want to see what we are doing here. We have departments of energy all over Europe and across the globe visiting us to see what we are doing here, so we are a global leader.