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

The Department is working on the matter Deputy O'Dowd has raised but I do not have the details with me. I will come back to him.

To respond to Deputy Cowen, it was interesting to meet some solid fuel supply companies yesterday and hear them state they are interested in developing low carbon alternatives for use in solid fuel heating systems. They see this as a big opportunity to develop a new market. There is an issue with regard to HVO because it will be in a lot of demand. It is a waste product that has real value. I am sure the Deputy Cowen would be the first to agree the aviation sector, which is of critical economic importance to the State, has its eye on it as a sustainable aviation fuel, as does the land transport industry in which it is used to increase the blend of low carbon fuels. Transport is probably the most difficult sector. There is no alternative for truckers in haulage vehicles. There are no easy alternatives. We need some of the material for this sector rather than for domestic heating for which we can turn to other alternatives.

To respond to Deputy O'Rourke, we will have to do a variety of things differently. For years we have not allowed people to sell back power to the grid and now we are. For years we had planning restrictions for solar power. This has also changed. For 20 years I have heard arguments here and in meetings as to why we could not have private wires. We need to start to do this now because this is the scale of the change we need to make. It is not only private wires for industry. It is also looking at hybrid interconnections where there might be a wind farm with a good grid connection. Could we use solar power in the surrounding area or nearby area to make best use of it? Wind and solar power often complement each other. On a cold day, such as today, when there is no wind, we would get quite good solar output even at a dark time of the year.

We are going to have to do so much. It might just be a line in the climate plan that people think does not say much, but there are several key lines in the plan that have real legal strength behind them now. We are changing direction in a variety of ways in this regard and the solar revolution will be central to this.

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