Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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182. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the status of responses to the public consultation on the microgeneration support scheme. [30812/21]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The Programme for Government commits to prioritising the development of micro-generation of electricity. Under the Climate Action Plan, a Micro-Generation Working Group, chaired by my Department, is developing an enabling framework for micro-generation which tackles existing barriers and establishes suitable supports within relevant market segments. My Department outlined proposals for a new Micro-generation Support Scheme in a public consultation that closed on 18 February.

An analysis of the almost 900 submissions received is underway by my Department, with a view to publication of a summary of responses on my Department's website in the coming weeks. The findings from the submissions to the public consultation will inform the final design of the Micro-generation Support Scheme.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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183. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the costed breakdown of the supports, that is, seed funding, technical capacity, through RESS and otherwise for the development of community renewable energy projects. [30815/21]

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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186. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if a line by line breakdown will be provided of the current and capital expenditure of the renewable energy support scheme communities and the renewable electricity support scheme communities; and the associated outputs from those programmes. [30828/21]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 183 and 186 together.

Community renewable energy projects are important in our transition to an electricity grid that is 70% powered by renewables by 2030. The Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) is the main government support to help deliver on this target.  

The first RESS auction included a dedicated community projects category in which seven projects have been selected for support, five of which are collaborations with commercial developers. My aim is to ensure the delivery of some 100 community electricity generation projects by 2030. In future onshore RESS auctions, there will be additional capacity allocated to the community category and I have decided that only fully community-owned projects will be eligible to apply.

In order to ensure an adequate pipeline of community renewable electricity projects I have allocated €3.2 million in funding this year for the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) to stimulate locally-owned community energy projects, €3 million of which is capital expenditure and €200,000 of which is current expenditure.

The funding allocated will enable SEAI to deploy a range of capacity-building supports including information dissemination, trusted intermediary and advisor services, and financial supports. I will announce further details of this enabling framework shortly. 

My Department outlined proposals for a new Micro-generation Support Scheme in a public consultation that closed on 18 February. It is envisaged that a suitable payment for excess electricity generated on site and exported to the grid will be available to all renewables self-consumers, including smaller scale community renewable energy projects, in the second half of 2021, subject to regulatory arrangements, in line with Articles 21 and 22 of Directive (EU) 2018/2001 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources.