Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

During the debate on the Energy Bill 2016, a number of the Deputy's colleagues mentioned concerns at community level in regard to solar. Deputy Thomas Byrne mentioned it and I asked him to come back to me in regard to these issues because we need to ensure that if guidelines need to be put in place, they are put in place at the start and are practical, possible to implement, reasonable and take into account the need for community engagement. I do not mean bringing the community together to tell it what is going on. It is about bringing the community together to talk about what the options are, how they can be involved and the give and take in regard to these projects. It should not be a matter of one-way traffic. That is important. The difficulty with solar photo voltaic up to now has been the KPMG study which showed that the subsidy it required was roughly €150 per megawatt. Large-scale wind is currently subsidised at approximately €70 per megawatt while I am told at European level that offshore wind is subsidised at approximately €100 per megawatt. The costs are the problem. I had a meeting recently with a Chinese manufacturer who said that the costs are being driven down, so it may be that we can meet somewhere in the middle.

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