Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Heating is a big expense, especially for hotels. There is also a non-domestic microgeneration scheme, which is another €2 million or so under the SEAI. It provides financial assistance to help businesses and other sectors to install solar PV panels to generate electricity onsite. Grants are available for systems up to a maximum of €2,400 for installation of up to 6 kW hours. There is also a non-domestic retrofit grant and putting new supports in place for that is being looked at.

On the TBESS, although we had about €40 million drawn down from the initial scheme and about 40,000 companies applied, we had expected the latter figure to be closer to 200,000. Accordingly, we have changed the qualification criteria quite significantly. Up to now a company only qualified for supports under the scheme if its energy bill increased by 50% or more. Now a company will quality if its energy bill increased by 30% or more, and this will be retrospective back to last September. I met a number of businesses that, because they had fixed-price contracts for a portion of last year, saw increases in their bills of 35% to 45%. They will now qualify and be able to claim retrospectively from last September onwards. We have made other changes. Up to now, the grant received under the TBESS through Revenue was 40% of the increased cost. That will now increase to 50%. That is not retrospective but prospective from 1 March. The reasoning is if it was retrospective, all of the 40,000 would have had to go back and look for a top-up from last September and Revenue saw that as unmanageable.

We have also increased the thresholds. From last September until the end of February no company could claim more than €10,000 per month, or if they had three premises separate to each other that could be €30,000 per month. We are now increasing that maximum by 50% to €15,000 per month and €45,000 per month for three premises combined. Again, that is prospective from 1 March. It is thus substantially more attractive for businesses to apply. We are talking about quite significant sums of money for companies potentially to be able to draw down, if they are hotels and so on.

The really tricky area has been hotels and restaurants that are not on the gas grid and have heating systems running off stored gas or kerosene. They have not been eligible for TBESS supports because it is quite difficult to calculate if you do not have a monthly billing system as you would with Bord Gáis or an electricity provider. We are looking at whether it is possible to provide the equivalent of TBESS for companies that have heating systems driven by stored gas or oil. It is certainly a big issue for places like west Cork and the many other parts of rural Ireland that are not on the gas network.