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

Solar power has a role to play. I had the piece on solar power written into the programme for Government. Anyone who claims I am not positively disposed towards this form of energy is wrong. Nevertheless, I will not have a scenario in which farmers are tied into contracts which bind them to solar power companies for five years when, in real terms, the chances of the project getting off the ground are small. The current applications for grid connection would provide 3.9 GW of solar power. This means that on a summer's day when average demand for electricity is 3.6 GW, we could shut down every power generation plant and wind turbine in the country and still have excess electricity on the grid. As this is not a realistic scenario, I set out to bring an element of realism to the discussion. I will address the issue of grid access in a moment.

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