Mr. Peter O'Shea:

I have heard those impressions. In our networks business, someone can turn up, notify and fit their micro generation installation. They can turn up and fit up to 3.6 kW on a domestic premises. I will give the Deputy an indication of what 3.6 kW is. It is around 12 solar panels. If one goes to three-phase supply, it is larger at about 10 kW, which is about 40 solar panels. In Europe, three-phase supply is brought closer to domestic premises than happens in Ireland or the UK so the capacity is lower but we will be well beyond the requirements of the new renewables directive in terms of people being able to just turn up and connect their plant to the system. That is the technical piece.

When we look at the commercial side of it, we think that when the smart metering scheme is put in place, it will be a game changer because we will be measuring electricity imports and exports from each individual home and we can work out the value of it. The RESS package at European level will require a value to be placed on that and payments to the customer. Over the past couple of years in advance of that, we have run two pilot schemes. One is in our supply business, Electric Ireland, where we have offered a tariff of ten cent per unit to existing customers. We have had to stop offering that. It is not available to new customers but we have maintained it for the eighth year in a row. To the best of my knowledge, we are the only electricity supplier that has offered that to its customer base and that pays the customer from electricity billed from solar panels or any other local micro generation. In our networks business, we offer a package to install the kit and provide an import-export meter. On top of that, we offered ten cent per unit of electricity generated from it. In the networks business, that cost was effectively socialised across all customers for a period but, again, it was a pilot to see how the network would operate under these conditions. It has not been continued because we have done the learning from it. ESB is at the forefront of looking to do these sort of initiatives. Electric Ireland offers a package for existing customers whereby we will give an interest-free loan to install some of these capabilities. Again, it has been taken up in reasonable numbers.