Mr. John Melvin:

There is an element of the most recent energy Act that brought in a requirement for the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, to take into account community-led renewable energy projects. That has put an obligation upon us and has facilitated us in the latest round of connection policies. As Mr. Paul Kenny said, one of the considerations of ECP-2 is to remove the requirement for planning permission for community energy projects to ensure they can get a connection offer before they get planning permission.

A second element of that is to ring-fence 50% of the non-batched space for such projects. A certain number of projects every year are available to network companies. They have the space and resources to make a certain number of offers a year. We have ring-fenced 50% of the non-batch element of that for community energy projects. The choice of that 50% has been considered and chosen based on interactions with the Department and with other entities. We are confident that this is the right size for what we understand to be the appetite for community energy projects.

We have met Mr. Kenny many times but perhaps we have not sat down together. There was a call for a ring-fenced area for community projects. That is part of our consideration. There was also a call for the removal of planning permission for community projects before they can get a grid. That is already part of our considerations for the next round. We have an open-door policy. Through the process of engagement, we have heard these concerns. This is one of the matters we are looking to deal with and fix development under the legislation that obliges us to do so.