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
Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It might be helpful to us to know that in order to overcome the difficulty.
Returning to a point I was making, we, in essence, have a law that is preventing the extraction into the national grid of electricity that has been generated through solar power. This is crazy. There has been a great amount of talk about potential farm diversification benefits. If anything, one would have a fear that there would be no actual food production left because, economically, in the figures that are cited, this would be a very attractive offer. It is telling that we do not as yet have substantial numbers involved in this.
Has Teagasc carried out any research on the cost-risk profile of productive land at the moment? Is there a best practice model that allows solar generation and food production to take place to ensure the best and most secure return for the farmers in the medium to long term? Has that type of research been carried out?