Written answers

Thursday, 2 June 2016

Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources

Sustainable Energy Communities Scheme

Photo of Brian StanleyBrian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein)
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288. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the national spend under the sustainable energy communities scheme; and if he will extend the scheme. [14178/16]

Photo of Denis NaughtenDenis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The Sustainable Energy Communities scheme is a support network, operated by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), and dedicated to community organisations that want to develop a sustainable energy system in their local area. A Sustainable Energy Community aims to be energy efficient, to use renewable energy where feasible and to develop decentralised energy supplies.  The community can include all the different energy users in the community including homes, sports clubs, community centres, churches and businesses.

26 community groups have become members of the Sustainable Energy Communities support network and 100 more have expressed an interest in becoming members.

As a first step in the process, SEAI enters into a 3 year partnership agreements with communities, during which SEAI provides technical supports for groups to identify, plan, implement and review a tailored programme of activities for their community.

For 2016, €500,000 in capital funding has been made available to support the Sustainable Energy Communities network and my intention is to develop a multi-annual pipeline for the scheme that will build capacity in communities to take on more ambitious sustainable energy projects and projects of scale in the coming years.

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