Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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129. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment further to Parliamentary Question No. 72 of 4 November 2021, the status of the deployment through the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland of capacity-building supports for community-owned RESS project development and in particular the trusted intermediary and advisor services and financial grant supports; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10254/22]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) is the main Government policy to help deliver on the ambition in the Climate Action Plan 2021 of up to 80% renewable electricity by 2030.

The RESS supports communities in a variety of ways including through a separate category for community projects and a mandatory community benefit fund for every project supported in the scheme.

The Climate Action Plan includes a target for at least 500MW of renewable electricity to be supplied by local community-based projects; to reach this target at least 100 community projects will be needed. In order to ensure such a pipeline of community projects I have allocated €2 million in capital funding in Budget 2022 to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI).

This funding will enable SEAI to deploy a range of capacity-building supports including toolkit guides to assist communities in developing renewable projects. The first four of these, covering grid connection, Solar PV, the planning process and onshore wind, are available on the SEAI website, with more to be developed in the coming months. A trusted intermediary service is also now in place, with an advisor service and financial grant supports to be delivered in quarter two of 2022.