James Bannon (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the opportunity to raise this issue and am glad the Minister is in the House to reply. This is an important energy saving and environmentally sustainable process that requires a coherent policy: the development of slurry-generated electricity.

The use of organic materials such as farm slurry could generate enough electricity to power one in every three homes at peak periods. By using fuels that are readily available, the Irish Bioenergy Association estimates enough electricity could be generated to meet supply storage demands as projected by the ESB. The association's figures show that if 25% of animal slurry and manure collected in Ireland was processed using anaerobic digestion and biogas produced, it could be used to generate 2,400 MW hours of electricity during the evening peak period, a tenth of total capacity.

The new power source would reduce pollution, cut greenhouse gas emissions and lower the cost of food production. Small processing plants are operating successfully in other European states and the production of electricity from organic material is already commonplace in Germany and Sweden. There is no coherent policy here to encourage such development.

There is much debate about the shortfall in electricity supply capacity but bioenergy can be stored and used to produce electricity at specific times when demand is high. Small processing plants can be used to produce large quantities of electricity. The technology to process the organic material or biomass is used widely in farming and has proven to be very cost effective. A herd of 50 cattle will produce enough waste to generate 5 KW of electricity per hour; the average house uses 2 KW per day.

Although only three private systems exist in Ireland, the deregulation of the electricity sector and growing demand for power will strengthen the case for bioenergy. Such initiatives will protect the environment by processing farm and industrial waste into organic fertilisers, create renewable energy, heat and electricity from waste and create employment. Full roll-out would be an innovative sustainable energy project that would help to reduce CO2 emissions and facilitate our meeting our Kyoto targets.

I highlight the Camphill community project in Ballytobin, County Kilkenny. This is a residential therapeutic centre for children and adults with disabilities. A total of 90 people live in the community and they consume 150,000 KW of electricity and 500,000 KW hours of primary energy in heating. The community is committed to strong environmental policies, with an organic farm and gardens. The community also has an agriculturally-based anaerobic digestive plant producing biogas from farmyard waste that meets its energy requirements.

The biogas project is an exciting and innovative means of improving our environmental and energy profile. Government policy to support and expand existing ventures is essential to enable Ireland to get off the ground in the biogas enterprise. I ask the Minister to give every help to expand this environmentally-friendly energy source and establish a pilot scheme in every county. It would be of benefit to the entire country.

Johnny Brady (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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I have a sister in Ballytobin and a fine system it is.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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I agree with Deputy Bannon, there is huge potential in this area and I want to see the Government deliver on that potential.

I welcome this opportunity to update the House on the significant progress achieved in harnessing our renewable energy resources and the challenging target set by the Government to increase the contribution of indigenous renewable energy resources to our electricity mix.

Our minimum targets are to increase the contribution of renewable energy to the electricity market to 15% by 2010 and 33% by 2020. These are not the limits of our ambition, we want to increase supplies beyond this. Project developers can be assured, therefore, that interest in developing new renewable energy projects will increase for a significant period.

The current support system for new renewable electricity projects is the REFIT scheme, which supports the production of electricity in the categories of large wind, small wind, landfill gas, small hydro and biomass. The biomass category is capable of supporting the production of electricity from all biodegradable wastes, including slurry.

The price offered to biomass produced electricity is at the highest level offered under REFIT commencing at €72 a megawatt hour. Any project developer who has a viable proposal to generate electricity from any biomass resource and who can comply with the terms and conditions of REFIT, which are listed on my Department's website, can be accommodated. It is essential in the case of waste products that the waste and project proposal are compliant with the waste management hierarchy in the first instance.

In March this year, my Department published a national bioenergy action plan for Ireland. This plan, which was developed following a joint ministerial conference, comprising seven Government Departments and Ministers, is a comprehensive strategy to increase the deployment of bioenergy across the three key sectors: transport, heat and electricity. Ireland is 90% dependent on imports to meet its energy needs. The more indigenous resources we can harness, the less exposed we are to consistently high and volatile oil prices, which will grow further due to forecasts of peak oil.

I welcome the fact that the REFIT programme will enable a significant number of additional projects to proceed. REFIT has an important part to play in developing all our renewable resources. I intend to expand this system in terms of the level of capacity supported and to include other technology bands that are not already covered under the scheme. The present level of development will deliver our 2010 renewable electricity target of 15% but there is clearly a step-change required in the level of development and the pace of development to ensure our 2020 target of 33% renewable electricity is achieved and exceeded.

To develop the necessary scale into our renewable energy development, there is a clear need to extend REFIT to cover the areas of offshore wind, additional biomass categories, including co-firing at the peat stations, and providing support for wave and tidal energy.

While some of these technologies are still emerging through the research and development stage, it is important that we signal our commitment to developers in these areas to enable technology developers to progress to full commercialisation stage in Ireland. Similarly in the case of energy harnessed from waste, while the earliest signal is desirable, we must interact with project developers to ensure delivery of credible authentication of waste management compliance.

The all-Ireland electricity market that commenced earlier this month will create additional opportunities for the renewables sector as we move to larger market opportunities. My Department is working with the relevant authorities to ensure that REFIT will fit seamlessly with the new market terms and conditions.

I also have asked my officials to resume the renewable energy development group process to provide a permanent forum in which industry, policymakers and relevant authorities can engage to ensure the renewables industry, including bioenergy producers, can move forward at the desired pace. This forum worked well in the past and significant progress was made when all players moved towards common ground.

In addition to these opportunities, significant work has been undertaken by my Department and colleagues in Northern Ireland, the regulators and the transmission system operators, both North and South, to complete an all-island grid study which is due to complete its work in a short number of weeks. I believe this work will provide both the foundation and the roadmap for developing the renewables sector over the next decade or so.

I am certain the post-Kyoto treaty agreement, when finalised, will make additional carbon reduction demands on Ireland. The European Council has already signalled a unilateral reduction of 20%, with a move to a reduction of 30% if other states come on board in a meaningful way. This shows clearly the need to reduce the carbon intensity of the energy we use and emphasises the fact that this issue will not go away. This is a long-term issue that must be addressed as a priority on an ongoing basis and this points clearly to the importance we must all place in developing our renewable energy future.

There is a growing demand to harness all our renewable energy resources and a sustainable programme is in place to deliver our 2020 targets. In the case of qualifying waste-to-energy projects, including slurry-based anaerobic digestion, these projects can access the existing support programme.