Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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105. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he will provide an update on the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland grants ahead of Budget 2023 to support homeowners, business owners, communities and large industry to reduce their energy costs and greenhouse emissions. [45779/22]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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In February this year, Government announced an enhanced package of measures to support the uptake of home energy upgrades. This includes:

- A new National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme providing increased grant levels of up to 50% of the cost of a typical deep retrofit to a B2 BER standard.

- Establishment of a network of registered One Stop Shops to offer a start-to-finish project management service, including access to financing, for home energy upgrades. 11 OSSs have been registered to date with a 12^thOSS expected shortly.

- A significant increase in the number of free energy upgrades provided to those at risk of energy poverty alongside changes to the operation of the Warmer Homes Scheme. This includes ensuring the Scheme prioritises those in the worst performing homes first and opening the Scheme for homeowner ‘revisits’ thereby allowing them apply for deeper energy upgrade measures now available under the scheme.

- A special enhanced grant rate, equivalent to 80% of the typical cost, for attic and cavity wall insulation has also been introduced for all households. This will help to urgently reduce energy use as part of the Government’s response to current exceptionally high energy prices.

Since then, demand across the SEAI residential and community retrofit schemes has been exceptionally high with a very significant increase in the number of applications year to date when compared to the same period in 2021. This strong pipeline of projects is translating into delivery.

This year there is a target to complete almost 27,000 home energy upgrades, including over 8,600 homes to a BER of B2. This compares to 15,500 upgrades delivered last year. Figures provided by the SEAI show that to the end of August 13,406 homes have been completed across the residential energy efficiency schemes, equating to a 70% increase on the same period last year, and of these, 4,234 have been upgraded to a post works Building Energy Rating (BER) of B2 or better, a 140 increase n the same period last year.

To the end of August, 2,769 homes have been upgraded under SEAI energy poverty schemes, this is almost three times the number of homes upgraded in the same period last year.

SEAI also offer a suite of supports specifically for the business sector. The available supports include:

- The Excellence in Energy Efficiency Design (EXEED) scheme is for organisations, both public and private planning a major investment in energy efficiency.

- The Support Scheme Renewable Heat (SSRH) supports adoption of renewable heat by commercial, industrial, agricultural, district heating and public sector organisations not covered by the emissions trading system.

- The Support Scheme for Energy Audits (SSEA) offers €2,000 towards the cost of a professional high quality energy audit.

- The Large Industry Energy Network (LIEN) is a network of large organisations who, with the support of the SEAI, work together to improve their energy performance.

The Government is acutely aware of the impact of rising energy prices on businesses and households. While a €2.4 billion package of policies and measures have already been put in place to support energy consumers, the Government recognises that more needs to be done as prices continue to increase. For that reason, additional measures to support businesses and households are being examined in the context of the forthcoming Budget.