Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)
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Question 962: To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the plans he has to give grant assistance to developers of wind turbines; if there will be incentives on a cross-Border basis through the integration of the all-Ireland energy market; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23213/08]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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All commercial electricity generating plant, North and South, now operates within the Single Wholesale Electricity Market on the island, which was established on 1 November 2007. It is the case that the two jurisdictions continue to operate different schemes to support the construction and operation of new renewable energy powered electricity generating plants.

The support mechanism in Ireland is the renewable energy feed-in tariff programme (REFIT), which is based on fixed-feed-in tariffs. This mechanism provides guaranteed prices to projects for each kilowatt hour of electricity produced without recourse to grant aid. The subvention in Northern Ireland for similar projects is the Renewable Obligations Certificates programme (ROCs), which is part of a wider UK support programme based on certificate trading. There are no proposals to change the REFIT scheme in Ireland or the programme currently operating in Northern Ireland to move towards a single support mechanism.