Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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249. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the steps he is taking to ensure that Ireland will meet its commitments to provide 40% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25259/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The 2009 EU Renewable Energy Directive sets Ireland a legally binding target of meeting 16% of our energy requirements from renewable sources by 2020.  Ireland is committed to achieving this target through meeting 40% of electricity demand, 12% of heat and 10% of transport from renewable sources of energy, with the latter transport target also being legally binding. Provisional figures provided by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) indicate that more than 26% of our electricity came from renewable sources in 2016. This progress, while welcome, will need to accelerate in pace in the coming years. To date, wind energy has been the largest driver of growth in renewable electricity. At end April 2017, the total amount of renewable generation connected to the grid was 3,174 MW of which circa. 2,850 MW was wind.  Eirgrid estimates that a total of between 3,900 and 4,300 MW of onshore renewable generation capacity will be required to allow Ireland to achieve 40% renewable electricity by 2020.

The Government has adopted a range of policy measures and schemes to incentivise the use of renewable energy.  The primary support mechanism in the electricity sector is the Renewable Energy Feed-In-Tariff (REFIT) schemes, which support the development of a range of renewable electricity technologies including hydro, biomass combustion, biomass combined heat and power, landfill gas and onshore wind.  

With regard to future policy initiatives, my Department is currently developing a proposed new Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) designed to assist in meeting our renewable electricity target. The introduction of any new scheme - including the overall costs and technologies to be supported - will be subject to Government approval and State Aid clearance from the European Commission.