Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Question 743: 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. [18263/12]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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The Renewable Energy Feed in Tariff scheme known as REFIT offers minimum guaranteed prices for up to 15 years to generators accepted under the terms and conditions into the REFIT schemes that enter a Power Purchase Agreement with licensed suppliers. Below are a list of the current REFIT categories and rates along with the 2012 REFIT reference prices per MWh.

The categories for REFIT 3 (Biomass Technologies) are as follows:

i. Anaerobic Digestion (AD) CHP (Combined heat and power) (units less than or equal to 500 kWe)

ii. AD CHP (units of greater than 500 kWe)

iii. AD (non CHP) (less than or equal to 500 kWe)

iv. AD (non CHP) (units of greater than 500 kWe)

v. Biomass CHP (units less than or equal to 1500kWe)

vi. Biomass CHP (units of greater than 1500kWe)

vii. Biomass Combustion (non-CHP): In the case of category vii, there are two sub-categories, one for using energy crops and one for all other biomass.

The following are the REFIT 3 reference prices for the Biomass Technology categories above:

REFIT 1 and REFIT 2 Reference Prices

(Onshore wind, small hydro and landfill gas)

There is no minimum size of plant that can qualify for the REFIT scheme. In the REFIT 3 scheme for biomass technologies, higher reference prices are offered for those new renewable electricity generating plants in the Anaerobic Digestion category that are less than half a megawatt and for those new biomass CHP (combined heat and power) units that are less than one and a half megawatts.

The hydro category in REFIT 1 (scheme now closed to new applicants) and REFIT 2 is limited to new renewable generating units of less than 5MW while the small wind category is limited to those new windfarms of less than 5MW and a higher rate is payable than for those in the large wind category. There are several small hydro units of less than 1MW in the REFIT 1 scheme, as well as a number of landfill gas units that are also less than 1MW.

Electric Ireland, on a commercial basis, offers a feed in tariff for domestic micro-generators under certain conditions and it recently extended its micro-generation payment of (9 cent / kWh) by a further year to 31st December 2012. The terms and conditions of the Electric Ireland scheme are available on the Electric Ireland website. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) initiated a pilot micro-generation scheme in 2009 and has been monitoring the 42 installations in that scheme in order to provide information and advice in this area.

The Programme for Government states that a feed-in tariff will be provided for micro-generators wishing to produce electricity for their own homes, farms and businesses and that they will be facilitated to sell surplus electricity to the grid while the tariff should not be significantly above single energy market price for electricity. My Department and the SEAI are finalising analysis on the most cost effective options which could be considered for supporting the micro-generation sector, having regard to the costs and benefits for all energy consumers.