Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for putting this question.

I can confirm that we are very much looking at the biomass policy and apart from a couple of final meetings between the Minister, myself and the Department, I expect to be in a position to publish the strategy document by the end of this month. As we are meeting those involved in the industry all of the time, we will be consulting them about a body on which they will be represented and to which they can make comments on the policy produced. I answer in the affirmative that we are very much looking at increasing the contribution of biomass.

The Renewable Energy Directive, published in 2009, set a legally binding target of 16% of our energy requirements from renewable resources by 2020. We are committed to meeting 40% of electricity demand from renewable sources by that time. In that regard, our policy interventions are designed to incentivise the market to deliver the necessary renewable generation capacity. The choice of technology is a commercial decision but the Renewable Energy Feed-In Tariff, or REFIT, is the primary means through which electricity from renewable sources is supported in Ireland. To date, wind energy has proved to be the most commercial technology in the Irish market and provisional figures for 2013 indicate that 16.4% of energy demand in the electricity sector was met from wind. Nevertheless, diversification of the renewable generation portfolio will be important for creating a sustainable, carbon-free electricity system. To that end, the Minister published the offshore renewable energy development plan earlier this year to establish the framework within which we can realise the potential of our potential.

Biomass will continue to be used in electricity generation and is likely to have a significant role in the heat and transport sectors. We will be publishing our strategy shortly which will set out our proposals to optimise the contribution that energy from biomass can make to achieving our 2020 targets.

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