Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)
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Question 531: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if, notwithstanding the energy saving benefits of proper insulation in schools and orientation of classrooms, his attention has been drawn to the potential to cut energy costs at schools and raise much needed revenue at the same time through the on-site installation of modern noise-minimised wind turbines in view of the fact that this would produce large amounts of electricity particularly during the winter months and schools would then be able to sell back energy produced after school hours and during holiday periods to the grid; if he will amend his policy regarding the installation of such turbines in new school builds given the considerably shorter payback required; if he will expedite pilot programmes in view of the need for such substantive money saving initiatives in the current economic climate; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9749/09]

Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)
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Question 532: To ask the Minister for Education and Science his views on a payback scheme for the retrofitting of wind turbines at existing schools, or installation in a new build, whereby said schools can utilise the free electricity during school hours while his Department will recoup the capital cost through the selling of surplus electricity to the national grid generated outside of school hours, particularly during the summer months, passing the income in full onto the school once the investment has been paid off; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9750/09]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 531 and 532 together.

My Department has a strong record in developing low energy educational buildings. For the past eight years my Department has been using a process called the DART approach to develop sustainable and energy efficiency in educational buildings. This acronym focuses on four key areas, namely; Design, Awareness, Research, and Technology.

The performance of my Department in the area of low energy design has been recognised at both National and International level with sustainable energy awards for excellence in Design and Specification and by the Taoiseach's Public Service Excellence Awards in 2008.

Rather than develop a unique focus on energy design the Department have taken a more holistic approach and have developed our technical guidance on energy efficiency in school designs as an integral part of the suite of technical guidance documents. These guidelines encourage the design team to take a complete design team approach from project conception. There is particular emphasis on elimination of over design, improved thermal envelope design and improved passive solar design, natural ventilation and day lighting along with advanced heating and lighting controls.

It has been demonstrated that all Primary Schools designed and built in line with the above policy and the technical guidance documents can have an energy performance that is 2.3 times more efficient than International best practice.

The application of wind energy schemes in schools has been explored by my Department and the results indicate that given the scale of application to match demand and capacity in a meaningful way schools are better placed to connect to one of the main wind energy electrical suppliers to maximise the potential of green electricity. This is kept under review given improvements in technology and the market place, with this in mind and given the Government's policy decision to allow micro-generators to sell into the national grid as announced on 26 February 2009, my Department are currently reviewing the above.

It must be remembered that a sustainable solution involves the matching of a sustainable resource with the end users needs and not just the application of the resource.

As with the application of any new technology in schools, decisions on the national roll out and procurement options will only be taken after the technology is tested appropriately in the school environment.