Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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106. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the status of his plans to enhance the community energy sector. [12895/21]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The Programme for Government notes the importance of community energy in delivering on our 70% renewable electricity target by 2030.The first auction in the Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) included a dedicated community projects category in which seven community projects were selected for support. In future onshore RESS auctions, there will be further capacity allocated to the community category and I have decided that only fully community-owned projects will be eligible.

In order to ensure an adequate pipeline I have allocated an additional €3 million in capital funding this year for the 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. I will announce further details of this enabling framework shortly.

All projects successful in a RESS auction must establish a Community Benefit Fund.  For the first auction alone this amounts to close to €4 million in funding annually. These funds will be aligned to incentivise investment in local renewable energy, energy efficiency measures and climate action initiatives.

Under the proposed new microgeneration support scheme to help citizens generate their own renewable electricity, for example from solar panels on their roofs, and receive a fair price when they sell the excess into the grid, renewable energy communities will be eligible for the Clean Export Premium, in addition to the Clean Export Guarantee, for a period of 15 years.

In addition, the Communities Energy Grant Scheme funded by my Department and operated by the SEAI, now with a budget of €30 million, is designed to encourage and support home retrofit to a BER B2 standard, as well as energy efficiency upgrades in commercial, public, community and voluntary sector facilities.