Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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282. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources with regards to the 40% target for renewable energies by 2020, if renewable energy is produced here offshore or onshore but is subsequently exported for use in another country if the production of this energy counts towards Ireland's targets for renewable energy use or those of the country to which is exported. [29140/13]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Ireland’s 40% target for 2020 relates to renewable electricity. Expert advice suggests that Ireland has the capability to achieve this national target from onshore renewable generation alone, with capacity to spare. This means that there is potential for projects of scale onshore that are aimed at export markets. It also means that our offshore wind resource can be developed as an export opportunity.

The Memorandum of Understanding on energy cooperation that UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Edward Davey and I signed in January of this year, will result in completion of consideration of how Irish renewable energy resources, onshore and offshore, might be developed to the mutual benefit of Ireland and the United Kingdom. This will determine whether it is beneficial for both countries to enter into an Inter-Governmental Agreement under the Renewable Energy Directive to provide for renewable energy trading.

The EU Directive provides a mechanism whereby renewable energy produced in one country can not only be exported to another but can also be counted towards meeting that other country’s national target. The electricity so exported is subtracted from the renewable output of the exporting state. The amount of energy to be procured by the United Kingdom and the mechanisms for sharing the resultant economic benefits, including the possibility of Ireland counting some of the export production towards meeting its own target, which is also allowed for under the Directive, are matters to be addressed in the coming year, and ahead of signing a potential Inter-Governmental Agreement, which would have to ensure no financial cost or risk to the Irish State or consumer.