Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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1709. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the number of projects approved per county under the better energy communities scheme in each of the years 2014 to 2016 to date, in tabular form; the total funds drawn down in each year; the total budget allocation in each year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26432/16]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) administers the Better Energy Communities Scheme on behalf of my Department. The scheme aims to support and encourage community based partnerships to improve the energy efficiency of homes, businesses and community facilities in a local area. To date the scheme has supported the upgrade of more than 12,000 homes and several hundred shared community facilities, including sports clubs, community centres and childcare facilities.

Earlier this year I announced that under this year's scheme, almost €20 million in grant support has been awarded. This will provide for energy efficiency upgrades to more than 2,600 homes and almost 300 community and commercial facilities. The total investment in energy efficiency, including funding from local communities themselves, is almost €48 million, which will support an estimated 700 direct and indirect jobs right across the country.

I enclose with this reply lists with a description, location and grant amount awarded to every Better Energy Communities project over 2014 - 2016. However, as the Deputy will note some of these projects cross county and Local Authority areas. In addition, all applications to the scheme include a number of sub-projects, which may be located in an individual county or may involve a countrywide network of facilities. It is also worth noting that during the lifetime of a communities project there can be scope changes as individual sub-projects are added or removed or there are changes to reflect altered technology specifications. Therefore, while SEAI tightly manage and track individual  projects in terms of grant offered, project delivered and grant drawn down, the individual spend per county is not tracked.

The table below details the number of projects funded, the budget allocation and the amount of funding spent in respect of each of the three years in question.

Better Energy Communities