Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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441. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the position regarding Ireland meeting its EU targets on renewable energy production, which is that 40% of Ireland's electricity and 16% of total energy consumption must come from renewable sources by the year 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50732/13]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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The overarching objective of the Government's energy policy is to ensure secure and sustainable supplies of competitively priced energy to all consumers. Ireland is currently heavily reliant on imported fossil fuels to meet our energy needs. While it is acknowledged that fossil fuels will remain part of the energy mix for some time to come, progress is being made towards increasing the share of renewable energy in our energy requirements. The 2009 EU Renewable Energy Directive set Ireland a legally binding target of meeting 16% of our energy requirements from renewable sources by 2020. In order to meet this target, Ireland is committed to meeting 40% of electricity demand, 12% of heating and 10% of transport power from renewable sources, with the transport target also being legally binding.

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 assumes Ireland's 16% target will be met incrementally at around 1% per annum. Provisional figures for 2012 have now been further refined and indicate that 7.1% of our overall energy requirements were met from renewable sources, made up of 19.6% in electricity, 5.2% in heat and 2.4% in transport. A second progress report on the NREAP is due for completion by the end of this year.

To date wind energy has been the largest driver of growth in renewable electricity, contributing most towards the achievement of the 2020 target. In 2012, 15.3% of Ireland's electricity demand was met by wind generation. At the end of quarter three this year, the total amount of renewable generation connected to the grid was over 2,100 MW. It is estimated that a total of between 3,500 and 4,000 MW of onshore renewable generation capacity will be required to allow Ireland to meet its 40% renewable electricity target. Currently, 3,000 MW of renewable generation has taken up connection offers under the Gate 3 grid connection programme. The primary support mechanisms for renewable electricity in Ireland are the Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff (REFIT) schemes. In order to facilitate the rate of build of renewable generation capacity required to meet the 2020 target, a number of changes to the REFIT 1 and 2 schemes were introduced in 2013. Full details of the revised terms and conditions of these schemes can be found on my Department's website.