Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
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115. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the grants available for persons building new sustainable houses. [18901/20]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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My Department funds a number of grant schemes to help homeowners to improve the energy efficiency of their properties. These schemes are administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI). Since 2000, approximately 400,000 homeowners have upgraded their homes with support from these schemes. This has resulted in warmer, healthier and more comfortable homes that are easier to heat and light. Funding of approximately €121 million has been allocated for home and community energy efficiency schemes and the solar PV scheme in 2020.The overarching aim of these schemes is to improve the energy efficiency of our built environment in a way which represents the best possible use of Exchequer funding. This is why the schemes are only available to older homes, built before 2011 in the case of renewable measures, and before 2006 in the case of insulation measures.

Buildings constructed more recently are generally more energy efficient due to energy performance requirements in the Building Regulations. In the case of new houses,minimum energy and carbon emissions performance requirements are set in Building Regulations which are currently at the advanced Nearly Zero Energy Building (NZEB)  performance requirements. As the energy efficiency performance of new buildings is already at the advanced NZEB level,grants are not provided for energy efficiency in new houses.

The Help to Buy incentive is a scheme that can help first-time property buyers with the deposit to purchase or build a new house or apartment. Further information on this scheme is available at www.revenue.ie.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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116. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment his plans to revise the solar panel grants scheme for private residences; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18987/20]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The solar PV Scheme, which commenced in July 2018, targets domestic customers, solar PV installations (rooftop solar panels), self-consumption (grant to assist with installation costs with no tariff for export) and battery energy storage systems (BESS). The Scheme was reviewed in December 2019 and the costs of installation were assessed. Some grant changes were made to the scheme arising from that assessment. As of end June 2020 there were 3,086 applications who received grant support to date, costing approximately €7.6m with over 10,700kWp installed. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland administer the Scheme on behalf of my Department and full details of grant rates are available at: www.seai.ieThe Programme for Government commits to  prioritising the development of micro-generation, letting people sell excess power back to the grid by June 2021. Development in this area may involve changes to the solar panel grants scheme. The measures set out below will assist in delivering this commitment.

The Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) published a Roadmap for the Clean Energy Package’s Electricity and Renewables Directives in March this year, which provides for a public consultation on the regulatory framework for prosumer development later this year. The document is available on the CRU website www.cru.ie.

A Micro-Generation working group, chaired by my Department, is examining an enabling framework for micro- generation which tackles existing barriers and establishes suitable supports within relevant market segments. The proposed support mechanism will be outlined in a public consultation in Q3 2020.

A suitable support payment for excess electricity generated on site and exported to the grid will, therefore, be available to all micro-generators in accordance with the timeline set out in the Programme for Government. Developing a Solar Energy Strategy for rooftop and ground, based photovoltaics, to ensure that a greater share of our electricity needs is met through solar power is another Government commitment in the Programme.