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

Solar PV panels are installed under a number of circumstances. For domestic installations, solar PV is installed on new homes, as one of the measures to achieve compliance with Part L of the building regulations. They are also installed on existing buildings through grant supports offered by Government, through the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI.

The microgeneration support scheme approved by the Government last December set a target of supporting more than 380 MW of new microgeneration capacity. This amounts to more than 60,000 homes and 9,000 non-domestic installations, including small businesses, schools and community groups. With the success of the scheme to date these targets are expected to be increased under the forthcoming climate action plan in 2023.

Since the introduction of the microgeneration support scheme domestic solar PV grant earlier this year, the SEAI has seen application levels increase significantly month on month. It is expected that applications will exceed 15,000 by year end, with more than 8,500 supported. To put this in context, the SEAI supported 4,000 applications for solar PV last year under the previous iteration of the scheme. It has more than doubled in one year.

For 2023, the SEAI is expecting to support more than 12,500 homes and more than 1,000 small businesses and community organisations. While the overall level of interest in the grant schemes indicates that the microgeneration support scheme is working well, its operation and effectiveness will be kept under review and adjustments made where necessary.

A new solar PV scheme for vulnerable customers registered as being dependent on electrically powered assistive devices is also being finalised with stakeholders by the SEAI which will operate the scheme. This €20 million scheme is targeted to provide direct support to more than 3,000 vulnerable customers who may have limited opportunity to reduce their demand. The scheme will provide customers with a 2 KW solar PV system with a hot water diverter in order to meet some of their electricity and hot water requirements.

The increased target of 5 GW of installed solar power capacity will be addressed through a combination of increased microgeneration, small scale generation and renewable electricity support scheme connections in the coming years.

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