Mr. James Healy:

The first step is to make them economically viable. It has to be worthwhile for farmers, as well as for a community, which wants to go down the route of taking up the renewable energy challenge. Wind farms are providing a return for those investing in them. Several years ago, our national conference visited a farmer in Limerick who had set up two anaerobic digesters when there was a special grant available for investing in them. He told us that if he did not have that grant in the initial stages, his anaerobic digesters would not have provided a return. Considering this grant is no longer available and there is no adequate tariff for selling electricity back to the grid, anaerobic digesters will not provide a return on investment.

One recommendation from the Citizens’ Assembly concerns selling electricity back to the grid. If there were an economic return from renewable energy, community-based projects would have a much stronger chance of succeeding rather than one-off investors. If our local communities feel they have ownership of a project, they are much more likely to succeed. The way policy is shaped, however, does not make it easy for groups to establish renewable energy projects.