John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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Question 179: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the reason he has limited the feed in fixed price traffic system for renewable electricity supplies to 400MW of new supplies; if he will approach the European Commission to ascertain if a larger amount of power supplies could be covered under the support scheme; and his Department's views on the amount of wind power that can be introduced into the electricity market here before extensive constraining of wind power supplies becomes necessary. [20776/06]

Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)
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The overall target is to more than double the current contribution from renewable energy technologies in electricity production to 13% by 2010. The target of 13.2% approximates to 1450 Megawatts of installed generating capacity operational by 2010. This target will be delivered by projects built under the preceding AER V and VI support programmes and the recently announced REFIT programme.

The volume of wind powered electricity generating stations which can contribute positively to electricity production at any time, is dependent on technological developments within the technology, electricity demand, the size and mix of technologies on the electricity network and the development of interconnectors. The constraints to the greater deployment of wind technology in the electricity market at this time is a combination of concerns about system stability and the technical status of and market interest in the technology as well as cost. A major all-island grid study is already in development to examine the implications of significantly increased renewables in the electricity mix on the island by 2020.

The 400 MWs is a minimum target which will be subject to ongoing reviews. It is agreed this volume of capacity can be accommodated without compromising the overall electricity network and under operational conditions acceptable to investors.