Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

Deputy Stanton is correct. This issue concerns not only the ESB but a number of different supply companies. In fairness to the ESB, it came forward with its offer of 10 cent premium for the first 3,000 kilowatt hours. There is a variety of ways in which this can be done. One lesson we must learn from the success in other countries is that what is not needed is a stop-start approach. That sometimes bedevils some of the very high initial feeds in fixed price systems which cannot be maintained. That is not a clever method either. We must learn this from other countries that have worked in this area.

With regard to whether there is a difficulty concerning the 11 kilowatt level, that is one of the benefits of doing the SEI study. We have grant-aided up to approximately 40% of those 42 projects in order to get answers to such technical questions regarding safety, height, power output and installation systems. The right way to do it is to answer those questions by proper surveying machines on the ground. This is all being done with the purpose of our having an environment that can deploy microgeneration. It has taken time but we will get there. Microgeneration will happen, not only in households but on Irish farms, and in rural areas where the power supply is more significant, available and more consistent, it will have a significant role to play.

We always said we would take this in stages, the first being the 1-11 kilowatt plant but we also recognise we need to work back down, from some of the large auto generators within industry towards the type of farming or small business environment that can use the power supplied. It is work in progress. More needs to be done and I am committed to it.

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