Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 14 February 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Effect of proposed withdrawal of the UK from the EU on the Irish Energy Market: Discussion.

5:00 pm

Mr. Eamonn Confrey:

On the renewable target and if it will be impacted by the UK withdrawal, the answer to that is that we will be proceeding with the negotiations on the basis of Ireland's contribution and what is expected to be Ireland's contribution. As Mr. Brady pointed out earlier, at the moment our target is 16% by 2020, but our expectation is that the 16% will effectively be our baseline from 2021 onwards. Depending on where we are in 2020, 16% will effectively become our target. Although we are now in a situation where the renewable target is an EU-wide target of 27%, at the moment there are no nationally binding targets emerging. From our perspective we have sub-targets across renewables in heat, transport and electricity, and it will be up to Ireland, and the Minister indeed, to decide the share within those sub-sectors as we go forward. We will be entering the negotiations on the basis of Ireland's contribution.