Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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12. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he will provide in tabular form the average cost of energy production per megawatt hour of each source of energy used here; the current supports given to wind energy here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40193/14]

Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)
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Establishing the average cost of energy production, referred to as the levelised cost, is complex and depends on a number of factors such as capital and operational costs, the fuel used, the cost of carbon, the cost of capital, technology, the project lifetime, efficiency and yield. There are a number of publicly available reports that compare the costs of electricity generation at an aggregate level from the various sources of energy including a 2010 report titled “Low Carbon Generation Options for the All Island Market” which is available on the EirGrid website. More recently, an interim report, prepared for the European Commission, titled "Subsidies and costs of EU energy" was published by the Commission last week. The interim report evaluates the subsidies and levelised costs of various renewable technologies in aggregate across European Member States and highlights the cost effectiveness of onshore wind energy. The primary support mechanism for renewable electricity from a range of renewable sources is through the Renewable Energy Feed-in-Tariff schemes. These REFIT schemes are designed to provide renewable electricity generators with the certainty required to finance their projects. Based around Power Purchase Agreements between generators and electricity suppliers, REFIT schemes assure a minimum price for each unit of electricity exported to the grid over a defined period. Specifically, depending on the size of a wind project the REFIT tariff is either €69.581 or €72.023 per megawatt hour of electricity exported to the grid. The costs associated with the REFIT schemes are payable from the Public Service Obligation fund, which is raised by a levy on all electricity consumers. Analysis underpinning these rates would have been undertaken and submitted with the application to the European Commission for State Aid approval.

Furthermore, tax relief is available on capital investment in wind generation assets under Section 486B of the Tax Consolidation Act and under the Employment and Investment Incentive Scheme. An Accelerated Capital Allowance scheme also allows companies to offset the cost of investment in qualifying renewable energy generation technologies against their tax liabilities in Year 1 rather than over a more prolonged period of years, thus aiding cash flow.