Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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Question 105: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the arrangements he will take with regard to wind farm developments which were approved under the AER support mechanisms but which have not met the required timetables for development of the projects; and the support measures the Government intends putting in place to support the development of off-shore wind farms in Irish waters. [38782/06]

Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)
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The Alternative Energy Requirement programme (AER) and its successor, the Renewable Energy feed-in tariff programme (REFIT), are designed to support the construction of new renewable energy powered electricity generating plants which would not otherwise proceed to build and operate. Both programmes are subject to EU State aids clearance. A condition of the State aids clearance for the AER programme is that projects can be supported for fifteen years or until 2019 whichever is earlier.

Any AER supported project, which is not yet built or under construction, cannot achieve the full 15 years support under the AER programme. The REFIT programme permits any project, which was previously selected in the AER programme but which was neither built nor under construction in April 2005, to enter REFIT and achieve a fifteen year support programme. It is a matter for individual project developers, including projects developers already declared successful in AER, to determine whether any particular project is compliant with the conditions precedent in REFIT and whether the REFIT support is acceptable. I am also moving any unused support capacity or capacity which becomes available under the AER programme into the REFIT support programme to ensure it is available to the maximum number of project proposals.

One exception to the 2019 deadline in the AER programme and the transfer of capacity to REFIT is the offshore wind category in AER VI. This category permits support to end 2021. Projects in this category have until end 2006 to construct. Correspondence with developers in this category is ongoing and it is premature to reach any final decisions in advance of that deadline.

Future targets across all renewable technologies, beyond the REFIT programme, will be settled in the context of the White Paper on Energy Policy.