Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 98: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources if he will recommend to the Department of Finance further incentives to those involved in alternative energy production; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33545/06]

Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)
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A number of innovative alternative energy programmes are in place as part of a €65m initiative announced in the context of Budget 2006. The programme is being rolled-out over a five year period and provides funding for the domestic, commercial, services and industrial sectors as follows: The €27m "Greener Homes" domestic renewable heat grants programme is providing grants for householders for the purpose of installing renewable heating including wood biomass boilers and stoves, solar panels and heat pumps; the €22m Bioheat grants programme provides grants for commercial scale wood biomass boilers aimed at the business and services sectors; the €11m Combined Heat and Power grants programme is providing funding for the commercial sector to switch to more efficient electricity and heat generation.

In addition to these funding measures, a number of other financial initiatives have been introduced. In July, I launched a five-year excise relief programme for biofuels, valued at over €200m. The programme builds on a pilot initiative rolled out in 2005, in which eight biofuels project were granted excise relief over a two-year period. In June, I launched the Renewable Energy Feed-in-Tariff which is providing a fixed feed-in-tariff for renewable electricity over a fifteen year period.

The Bio-energy Ministerial Task Force will develop, by end-year a cohesive national bioenergy strategy including biofuels. Further initiatives including the question of additional supports are being considered in the context of developments to date the Green Paper on Energy Policy, and the Estimates and Budgetary processes.