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

Absolutely. District heating is going to play an extremely important role in the decarbonisation of the heating sector. There are certain areas, especially where waste heat is available, where this approach will be the preferred solution compared to retrofitting or insulating buildings. It can have real advantages and offer protection for our country. There are slight variations and different forms of these systems. Local heating systems, such as the two in question here, and especially where a specific development is concerned, be that an apartment or housing development, usually consist of a shared heating system, typically with a management fee structure. District heating, as I see it being developed, is more designed on municipal lines across a whole range of different developments and is planned by municipal local authorities and energy companies to help to funnel waste heat to a variety of areas.

These local heating schemes, which exist across the world and are effective, do not tend to use gas as the preferred heating solution. Typically, these types of systems use woodchip biomass or other similar supplies of fuel. One of the things we might do in conjunction with the Deputies is look at their constituencies to explore if there might be ways in which alternative fuels might be used to try to get these developments out of paying expensive gas market prices.

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