Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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Question 209: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the reason the providers of renewable electricity are obliged to pay the public service obligation levy for the provision of renewable energy. [5827/06]

Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)
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Section 39 of the Electricity Regulation Act 1999 provides the statutory framework for the imposition of public service obligations on electricity undertakings by means of ministerial order. This section provides for the recovery, by way of levy on final customers, of the additional costs incurred by the undertaking on which the obligation is imposed in complying with an order made under this section. Under the Act, a final customer is defined as a person being supplied with electricity at a single premises for consumption on those premises.

The relevant order made under section 39 provides that it shall be the duty of suppliers — which includes suppliers of renewable electricity — of electricity to a final customer to invoice the public service obligation levy to each such customer on the basis notified to them by the Commission for Energy Regulation in respect of each electricity account held by such final customer, and to collect from them the amount of the levy payable in respect of each such account in accordance with the provisions of the order.

All appropriate amounts collected are ultimately paid to the undertaking on which the obligation is imposed.