Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael)
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265. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the provision being made to provide community dividends in which renewable energy projects are being developed in communities and more specifically in the areas of wind generation, solar generation and hydro generation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33062/20]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) is the main government support to help deliver on Ireland’s 70% renewable electricity target by 2030. A mandatory Community Benefit Fund must be provided by all projects successful in a RESS auction and the contribution for each project has been set at €2/MWh. These funds will be aligned to incentivise investment in local renewable energy, energy efficiency measures and climate action initiatives. The community benefit fund under the first RESS auction which was held this year will deliver approximately €4.5million a year to sustainable community initiatives targeted at those communities living in close proximity to the RESS-1 Projects.

The first RESS auction also included a dedicated community projects category in which seven projects were selected for support. This will allow these seven communities to develop their own renewable energy projects - five solar and two onshore wind - and sell the energy back to the grid providing further benefits to their localities. It is my intention that communities all over the country should be able to generate electricity and reap the benefits in their own localities from the sale of that electricity. In that regard, I aim to ensure the delivery of some 100 community electricity generation projects by 2030.

In order to ensure an adequate pipeline of such projects I have allocated an additional €3 million in capital funding in Budget 2021 for the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) to stimulate locally-owned community energy projects. This funding will enable SEAI to deploy a range of capacity-building supports including information dissemination, trusted intermediary and advisor services and financial supports such as enabling grants.