Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)
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Question 367: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources if he will agree to request Sustainable Energy Ireland to review its policy of not grant aiding the purchase by the public of small wind turbines for the purpose of heating such as where the turbine is directly connected to a water heating element (details supplied). [31672/06]

Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)
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I am keen to see progress in developing domestic scale renewable electricity and heat technologies. There are however, a number of technical and administrative issues which we are currently addressing and which will need to be resolved in order to make further progress in this area, and my Department is working with the relevant agencies, including Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI), the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER), ESB Networks and the Electro-Technical Council of Ireland in this regard.

Sustainable Energy Ireland provides grant assistance, under its Renewable Energy Research, Development and Demonstration programme, to suppliers for demonstrating small wind turbines in domestic and small business applications. The specification, installation and performance of the wind turbines supplied will be closely monitored in this programme. The results of the monitoring will be used in SEI's public information material on domestic scale renewable electricity and may inform future policy on any Government supports, which may be required for this sector and the manner in which they might be implemented.

As part of the ongoing work to progress this area, CER is today launching a public consultation on micro generation. Much work needs to be done to ensure that the appropriate administrative, technical and safety standards and practices are in place before we can proceed with any programmes for the widespread deployment of micro generation technologies. I am confident that appropriate solutions suited to the context of the Irish electricity grid and for non-grid connected technologies will be identified as a result of this work so that we can further develop this emerging sector.