Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he will indicate to which unit cost in respect of electricity generation has been made with a view to identifying the most viable alternative electricity-generating sources; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10336/13]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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I assume the Deputy is referring to price support schemes for renewable energy generation. Ireland operates a number of support schemes for renewable generation known as REFIT. The REFIT schemes operate by providing a floor price for renewable electricity exported to the grid from specified technologies over a 15 year period.

The reference rates for the REFIT 1 and REFIT 2 scheme per megawatt hour are as follows:

The reference rates for the REFIT 3 scheme per megawatt hour are as follows:

The first Progress Report on the National Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP), which is available on my Department’s website, set out the expected breakdown in renewable technologies in the meeting of our target.

It estimated that 3968MW of installed renewable capacity would be required in 2020 to reach 40% renewable electricity, provided our energy efficiency targets are met. Of that, 3,521MW is estimated to be met from onshore wind, 75MW from wave and tidal, 234MW of hydro generation and 274MW of biomass.

The First Progress Report on the NREAP also acknowledged that there had been some changes as regards technology compared to the published NREAP. This Plan indicated a particular expected breakdown in the trajectory between onshore and offshore wind. The Government has, however, decided since, that in meeting our legal obligation to deliver the 2020 renewables target, onshore rather than offshore wind should be pursued in the first instance, in order to minimise any support scheme costs borne by electricity consumers.

Wave and tidal energy are still at the RD&D stage of development.

As can be seen above, the lowest support scheme reference rates are those relating to onshore wind and onshore wind is expected to provide the greatest contribution towards achieving 40% renewable electricity by 2020.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the proportion of electricity now generated through wind or alternative energy resources; the extent to which targets in this regard can be revised and updated with particular reference to the need to reduce dependence on imports; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10339/13]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Under Directive 2009/28/EC Ireland was set a target of 16% of all energy consumption to be from renewable sources by 2020, up from 3.1% in 2005. Each Member State was required to have at least 10% renewable transport consumption by 2020 and was required to produce a National Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP), setting out how the overall target would be achieved across the electricity, transport and heating sectors.

Ireland set out in its NREAP that it intended to reach its target by 40% renewable electricity, 10% renewable transport and 12% renewable heating, which together amount to 16% of overall energy consumption in 2020.

At the end of 2012, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) estimates that almost 19% of electricity consumption was from renewable sources. The first progress report on the NREAP estimates that approximately 4000MW of installed renewable capacity is required in order to achieve our target. We need approximately 2100MW of additional new renewable capacity to be installed in the period to 2020 to achieve 40% renewable electricity.

This is a large amount of new generation and will be challenging to achieve. Significant new grid build and grid upgrade work is required in order to connect this large volume of new generation. In addition, significant operational changes are required to grid operation to ensure that the grid is capable of absorbing this significant amount of new intermittent asynchronous renewable generation while ensuring system security and stability.

While this will be challenging, EirGrid has launched a programme of work known as DS3 in order to manage the operational changes necessary to achieve 40% renewable electricity by 2020. This requires an ability for the system to securely cater for 75% instantaneous penetration of wind generation (i.e. that at least 75% of our electricity consumption can be from wind at times when wind is available). Currently the system limits this to 50% for operational and security reasons. Several operational and system changes are required to make this step change and it will be challenging, but work is underway to ensure that it is achievable.

There is still an enormous amount of work and effort required to ensure that Ireland achieves the challenging legally binding target assigned under Directive 2009/28/EC. There is no intention to revise this upwards in the current circumstances.