Mr. Kevin Brady:

I might take the whole five minutes; it is easier that way.

I realise the committee has had a number of meetings on energy and climate targets, so I will just talk about bioenergy.

We all know that Ireland has a 16% target for renewable energy, and that we reached 9.5% in 2016. Of that renewable energy, 49% was from wind energy. The next largest portion, some 39%, was from bioenergy. Of that 39%, 25% is from biomass, 11% is from biofuels and 3% is from bio gas. Looking at each of the sectors, it is important to see where bioenergy is used. Some 2.3 percentage points of the 27% renewable electricity came from bioenergy, and some 5.1 percentage points of the 6.8% heat came from bioenergy. Even though it only represents 10% of the renewable electricity it accounts for 75% of renewable heat energy. Furthermore, almost all of the 5% renewable energy used in transport came from bioenergy. We are seeing that the majority of bioenergy is used in the heat and transport sectors and that there has been some penetration in the electricity sector.

National policy in terms of bioenergy is well set and has been laid out in the national mitigation plan, the energy White Paper and the draft bioenergy plan. The draft bioenergy plan is undergoing a strategic environmental assessment with a view to finalising it. All of the actions under the draft plan are being progressed. The key projects in the electricity sector are the refit and renewable electricity support schemes. In the transport sector there is the biofuels obligation scheme, BOS, and in the heat sector there is a new support scheme for renewable heat, which was formerly called the renewable heat incentive, RHI.

We are very familiar with the REFIT 3 scheme, so I will not go into that in much detail. The new renewable electricity support scheme, RESS, is currently in development. There was a public consultation which closed in November 2017 to which there were 1,250 responses. The design proposal for the scheme is being developed, with a final proposal to be brought to Government later this year. The introduction of the scheme will of course be subject to state aid clearance.

In the transport sector, the BOS, which has been in place for a number of years, now requires fuel suppliers to include 8% of fuel in petrol and diesel supplied in Ireland to be from biofuels. There is some double-counting so the figure is not a full 8%. The 8% target was introduced on 1 January 2017. We had a public consultation which closed in January which sought views on increasing that rate to 10% from 1 January 2019 and to circa 12% from 1 January 2020. There has been a relatively low level of indigenous biofuels used in Ireland; only 17.5% of the biofuels used in feedstock in 2016 came from indigenous sources. As the demand increases, not just in Ireland but across Europe, the opportunity for biofuel producers in Ireland will also increase.

In the heat sector, the new support scheme for renewable heat - formerly the RHI - was approved by Government in December 2017. Two key work streams are under way at the moment. One is the state aid process; we are at the pre-notification stage at the moment. The other is the development of the detailed terms and conditions. Deputies and Senators familiar with the scheme will see that we published a scheme overview which has been approved by Government on the website. The detailed terms and conditions are being developed by SEI for review and for the approval of the Minister. That will happen over the coming months.

We are working on the issue of how the support scheme for renewable heat and the renewable electricity support scheme will work in conjunction with each other to support combined heat and power. We are also looking at the potential for using bio methane, to be produced by anaerobic digestion and injected into the natural gas grid. This has not been supported under the current approved support scheme for renewable heat, but we are examining the different options in terms of how that could be supported in future.

This is a meeting on bioenergy, and I want to stick to that topic. I should not leave out the fact that there is an electrification piece around heat and transport as well, which we can talk about at a point in the future.

Bioenergy is already playing a role, and has a role to play across all three sectors. The State supports that through the new renewable electricity support scheme in the electricity sector, the biofuel obligation scheme in the transport sector, and primarily through the support scheme for renewable heat in the heat sector.