Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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99. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources with regards to the wind and wave energy projects, the tax and licensing terms of same; his views on whether the public adequately benefits from these natural resources. [20203/13]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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The Commission for Energy Regulation is responsible for issuing licences to construct generation capacity and to generate electricity.

Ireland primarily supports the development of renewable energy in order that we can meet our challenging targets under the Renewable Energy Directive. To achieve the 16% target we will have to ensure that renewable energy contributes 40% to our electricity consumption, 12% to our heating consumption and 10% of our transport.

To assist us meeting the electricity targets, the primary supports put in place are schemes of feed-in tariffs. Additionally, the qualifying period for tax relief for corporate investment in certain renewable energy projects was extended from 31 December 2011 to 31 December 2014 in Budget 2012.

The purpose of the schemes and tax relief is to encourage investment in renewable energy projects and to facilitate the growth of electricity generation capacity using these sources.

In terms of benefits, a central objective of the Directive is to ensure that the deployment of renewable energy contributes to environmental and climate change objectives.

Increased renewable energy also improves security of supply and also has the benefit of displacing the imports of fossil fuel. In 2011, it is estimated that €300 million in fossil fuel imports and 3.6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions were avoided – equivalent to the annual energy needs of almost 350,000 homes. The bulk of the €300 million was due to the displacement of gas by electricity generation from wind.

In terms of the cost to the public, two major studies have been published on the impact of increased wind generation on the Single Electricity Market in Ireland. Both studies found that the market is capable of operating successfully with increasing amounts of wind and that the cost to consumers in PSO terms tends to be cancelled out by the cost savings in the wholesale market.