Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

A major development last week was the publication of Shaping our Electricity Future by EirGrid. A detailed two-year public consultation process leading into that came back with something that a lot of politicians here would absolutely understand, which is that microgeneration has to be the centre of the electricity future, shaping our new climate and energy future. The plan has been delayed. We were due to have it in the summer under European legislation. It has taken us longer than that but we are on the cusp of delivering, within weeks. This scheme will involve an ability to export surplus energy based on the market rate and systems up to around 50 kW will be able to get a support price. I cannot announce that rate on the floor of the House today but it will be announced shortly. Even larger projects, up to 1 MW, might allow a number of farms to come together and have another source of income. That goes back to what I was discussing with Deputy Michael Healy-Rae earlier. Businesses or communities could come together to put in a collective installation. Those are the three steps, namely, being able to export, getting a support price from microgeneration, and then going larger again. That will probably take slightly longer but we will introduce a regime to support microgeneration and the exact figures will be published in the coming weeks.

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