Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I suspect Deputy Stanton knows more about the detail of this than I do and I am struggling to understand the barriers and obstacles to which he refers. For example, I am aware that the single electricity market price paid for electricity is approximately €60 per megawatt hour. The ESB pays microgenerators approximately three times this amount, that is, €190. Obviously, this is a barrier from the point of view of the State in the sense that if a subsidy is required - this signals that it is required - it is a significant matter. I hope that I will have the conclusions of the SEAI report before the autumn. It is analysing various scenarios related to levels of feed in tariffs which would be required.

As the Deputy is aware, the REFIT, renewable energy feed in tariff, system operates for large-scale projects. It is funded by public service obligation on all consumers. We have made a commitment in the programme for Government to provide a REFIT system for microgenerators for the reasons Deputy Stanton has hinted. However, as the programme for Government states, "The tariff will not be significantly above single energy market price for electricity". We must wait and see what the conclusions will be. Since the scheme announced has the capacity to accommodate 4,000 participants, the level of uptake is disappointing. Is it the case that the level of subsidy is inadequate? How much further can one go? The contribution of renewables is critical. If one were obliged to increase the subsidy, would it be the most economic way of feeding back into the grid? We must wait and see. I was surprised to learn that there have been only 364 applicants of the scheme as it stands.

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