Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)
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The 2009 EU Renewable Energy Directive set Ireland a legally binding target of meeting 16% of our overall energy requirements from renewable sources by 2020. To meet this target, Ireland is committed to achieving 40% renewables in electricity, 12% in heat and 10% in transport. While the cost of any shortfall has yet to be established, the SEAI has estimated that it could be in the range of €100 million to €150 million per percentage point shortfall. 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 through our indigenous resources such as ocean, bioenergy and 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. The initial public consultation on the scheme will be published shortly, a key component of which will be consideration of the available technologies, their cost effectiveness and the level of any support required.

In relation to the issue of ESB divestment of additional generation plant, market power in the generation market has been the subject of robust and stringent regulation via market power mitigation measures by the regulators North and South since 2007, when the Single Electricity Market (SEM) was set up. The SEM is currently the subject of redesign to ensure compliance with the EU target model for the internal energy market. The market will be called the Integrated Single Electricity Market (I-SEM). The SEM Committee, consisting of both Regulators and an Independent Member, which is redesigning the market, has recently sought comments to identify to what extent there could be market power in the I-SEM and to decide on an associated regulatory market power mitigation strategy and measures, as part of the market power mitigation workstream of the redesign project. This workstream will evaluate the potential for the exercise of market power within the I-SEM wholesale market, due to go live in 2017, and consider the implications of this for the range of regulatory market power mitigation measures that may be employed.