Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Question 144: To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the guaranteed feed-in tariff for renewable electricity production; the guaranteed tariff payable to micro energy producers; the maximum capacity that qualifies as micro production; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15992/12]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Electric Ireland operated a voluntary microgeneration scheme for domestic consumers with an upper limit of 11kv in size which closed for new applicants at the end of February. The scheme operated at a rate of 19 cent per kilowatt hour for Electric Ireland customers. This is above the wholesale rate of around 7 cent per kilowatt hour. Despite being asked to consider introducing such a scheme by the Commission for Energy Regulation, no other electricity supply company was prepared to introduce a microgeneration scheme. Given that the electricity market is now fully liberalised it was up to the individual supply companies to introduce a scheme of this kind.

The Programme for Government commits to consideration of a feed in tariff for micro-generators producing electricity for their own homes, farms and businesses and selling surplus electricity to the grid. The programme also states that the tariff will not be significantly above the single energy market price for electricity. Any increased electricity costs arising from extending such a scheme to PSO supports would have to be borne by all electricity consumers to fund it and typically microgeneration tends to require significantly higher tariffs than large scale generation.

The latest figures from ESB Networks are that 588 import/export meters have been installed, which are required for microgeneration. Electric Ireland has advised that they have 448 customers in receipt of payments under their domestic microgeneration scheme.