Mr. Michael Manley:

Deputy Lowry asked two challenging questions. With regard to microgeneration and support therefor, we have launched a pilot scheme. It is providing the grants. It is running into next year. The objective is to harvest the data on costs, the technologies, how the technologies work, housing insulation, and how to build and develop the supply chain. The Deputy is more focused on the renewable electricity support, RES, scheme. The relevant guidelines in this regard are the European Commission's guidelines of 2014. These change things profoundly. Up to this, we provided the feed-in tariff for wind and other technologies under REFIT 1, REFIT 2 and REFIT 3 and the earlier AER measure. The new RES scheme will be an auction-based system. The high-level design paper for it was published in July last year. We have been engaged with the European Commission going through the pre-state aid approval process, which is a formal consultation process. Colleagues have been in Brussels working through it. We are not yet in a position where we can make the final formal application. We expect to do so in the coming months. God willing, or the Commission willing, and once we get state aid approval, we will open the scheme and allow bidding. The phasing is set out over the next period of decades. The idea is to create auctions that are big enough to be competitive but not so big that everyone gets a piece of the pie. I hope that will be happening later this year. If the members want some more detail, my colleagues will happily give it.