Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:

Our role is around the connection of the projects. To give an idea, for an average house, which could be any customer among the 2.2 million to 2.3 million across the network, the average consumption of those dwellings is approximately 4,200 KW hours per year. The average energy consumption by a typical dairy farm which has 100 cows would be about 25,000 KW hours and on top of that would be the energy consumption for a house. That gives an idea of average usage.

There are case studies available online, and maybe members have heard this from other visitors to this committee, which indicate the payback period for farmers who install solar on their rooftops, in the way that we are talking about through the scheme, is a very short number of years. I cannot give an exact euro figure for their savings. However, when one looks at the total energy consumption and knows the price of electricity, and given that the farming bodies themselves, including the likes of the IFA, are talking about the investment benefit for farmers of installing it, it is clear these are positive projects for farms.