Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael)
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134. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he is satisfied regarding Ireland meeting its 2020 targets in relation to the provision of energy specifically through biomass; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49961/13]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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The 2009 EU Renewable Energy Directive set Ireland a legally binding target of meeting 16% of our energy requirements from renewable sources by 2020 and it is expected that this will be met by achieving 40% renewable electricity, 12% renewable heating and 10% renewable transport.

The Directive also requires that Member States set out in a National Renewable Energy Action Plan (NREAP) their trajectories towards meeting these targets. Ireland's NREAP, which can be downloaded from my Department's website, assumes Ireland's 16% target will be met incrementally at around 1% per annum. In terms of progress to date, the provisional figures for 2012 indicate that 7.1% of the overall energy requirements were met from renewable sources with 3% coming from bioenergy sources including biofuels, solid biomass, biogas and landfill gas.

The principal policies are in place to incentivise the increased use of renewable energy. In the electricity sector, the REFIT schemes are the main policy supports and offer guaranteed tariffs for electricity from wind, hydropower and a number of categories of biomass. The REFIT3 scheme also supports biomass-fuelled high efficiency cogeneration which, in addition to renewable electricity, supports renewable heat. In the transport sector, the penetration of renewable energy will grow mainly with the increased use of sustainable biofuels which is supported by way of the Biofuel Obligation Scheme.

Additionally, my Department is currently finalising a Bioenergy Strategy, which will set out the actions required to optimise the bioenergy sector’s contribution to the 2020 renewable energy target.