Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 4 May 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Solar Energy and the Agricultural Industry: Discussion

Mr. Gary Connolly:

Yes. More to the point, it is the north of the country so it is a 32-26-county solution, as has been seen already.

With regard to TAMS issues, I have been involved in a large programme with a large co-operative here to roll out solar on rooftops through TAMS to many dairy providers. We came across a number of obstacles. As Mr. Bolger said, there was an issue with not ring-fencing that €10 million of funding. That figure was announced but was not ring-fenced for solar; it was contested with every other upgrade in TAMS. We contested that within TAMS, that could have been segregated in the same way as the low emissions slurry spreading was segregated out with great success. When it comes to solar, the most progressive farmers are those who want to jump on board but they are also those who have already capped out at the €80,000 funding that came with TAMS in the first place. That rapidly diminished our ability to roll it out. More than 50% of that co-operative's suppliers of milk put their hand up looking for interest in the system we put forward in TAMS but in the end, only 10% of suppliers took up the system. We had finance in place and had looked after all the bureaucracy of TAMS but it was still to onerous and difficult for farmers to get on board. There was massive interest from the farming community but the set-up was too onerous. I have a number of other instances of obstacles-----

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