Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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170. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources in view of the established technologies now associated with the generation of electricity from wind energy, his views on redirecting supports to other technologies in the renewable area; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5140/15]

Alex White (Dublin South, 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. 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 its heat, and 10% of its transport, from renewable sources. Figures for 2013 show that 20.9% of electricity demand was met from renewables.

Ireland is regarded as a stable and favourable investment environment for renewable energy production, supported by a variety of policy initiatives including the Renewable Energy Feed-In-Tariff (REFIT) scheme. The existing feed-in tariff is a very cost effective tool to support renewable energy production, as outlined in a report published by the Council of European Energy Regulators in January.

To date onshore wind energy has been the most cost effective renewable technology in the Irish electricity market, contributing most towards the achievement of the 2020 target. There is also potential to diversify our renewable electricity generation portfolio in the period to 2020 and beyond by realising the potential of our indigenous resources such as ocean, bioenergy and potentially solar energy.

The cost effectiveness of support for renewables is a key consideration in the work now underway in my Department to consider the appropriateness and design of any new support scheme for renewable electricity. Any scheme would be subject to EU rules on State Aid. The commercial success of onshore wind means that we are now at the point where a gradual move to a more market based support for the technology is appropriate. Taking account of developments in EU electricity market integration, my Department will be engaging with stakeholders in this work, a key component of which will be consideration of the available technologies, their cost effectiveness and the level of any support required.