Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Before the Minister replies, I echo what the Cathaoirleach said earlier. We wish the Minister well. I know he will be staying around as Minister for a while. We have had some friendly disagreements, but I always found him to be a gentleman. I wish him and his family well. I know how dedicated he is to his family.I thank the Cathaoirleach for his very kind words. The community energy grant scheme is part of the Government’s national retrofit programme within which there is a total budget of €437.2 million this year that SEAI allocate for residential and community energy upgrade schemes to allow us to meet our climate targets. The community energy grant, CEG, scheme aims to upgrade the building stock and facilities to high standards of energy efficiency and renewable energy use. This helps to reduce fossil fuel use, energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

The scheme supports cross-sectoral and community-oriented partnership approaches that deliver energy savings to a range of building types including public, commercial and community buildings with a particular focus on using the projects to deliver home retrofits. Through this scheme, communities are improving the energy efficiency of shared community buildings and businesses are becoming more competitive through reduced energy costs. In addition, homes are being upgraded making them more comfortable and helping to alleviate the effects of energy poverty.

Under the CEG scheme, the project co-ordinators, including local energy agencies, make applications to SEAI for funding support. The local energy agencies or the other project co-ordinators, the applicants, do not administer the scheme on behalf of the SEAI. Instead, they make applications for grant support to the scheme which are evaluated and, if successful, they are issued with a grant offer.

Last year, the community energy grant scheme delivered 601 home energy upgrades to at least a B2 BER or better and over 290 non-residential projects. The home energy upgrades included 68 approved housing body homes and 44 energy-poor homes. There were 595 heat pumps installed. The average improvement in building energy ratings for homes was from an average of D2 to a B2 rating or better.

Funding of €45 million in capital has been allocated to the scheme this year. The community energy grant scheme has been open all year and the SEAI has been accepting and processing applications. A number of projects have already been approved with five others under evaluation and awaiting approval. Four of the applications awaiting approval were made in June 2024 with the other project application received in mid-May 2024. These projects will upgrade energy poor, private and approved housing body homes across Ireland, with typically one fifth being energy-poor homes. The non-domestic element of these projects include retail, manufacturing, sports facilities, renewable energy, community buildings and electrical vehicle charging.

The scheme guidelines were updated in recent weeks with a number of important changes introduced, including a new domestic-only strand to increase the delivery of home retrofits through scheme; changes aimed at addressing some of the key barriers to upgrading flat and apartment buildings; the introduction of 18-month contracts for some larger, more complex non-domestic projects; and facilitation of innovative delivery approaches including those aimed at aggregated retrofit delivery and increased heat pump deployment. The changes were designed to address particular challenges in upgrading our built environment and I look forward to seeing the projects supported in the year to come.