Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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114. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the plans his Department has to support community or co-operative anaerobic digester plants. [1647/23]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Anaerobic Digestion produces biogas which can be captured and used for renewable heat and electricity generation.

My Department has developed a number of schemes to support production of renewable electricity in Ireland which are open to community participation. These schemes include the grid scale, auction based Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS) - of which the third onshore auction is to be held in 2023, and the Microgeneration Support Scheme (MSS), for smaller installations, up to 50 kW in size (30kWe for micro-renewable Combined Heat and Power).  

The RESS and MSS schemes both include Anaerobic Digestion (AD) for electricity generation with High Efficiency Combined Heat and Power as an eligible technology.  Under the RESS, there are a range of measures in place to support increased community ownership, participation in, and benefit from, renewable electricity projects, including an Enabling Framework for Community Participation. However, no AD projects have come through the RESS auctions to date.  

Anaerobic digestion for renewable heat is supported through the Support Scheme for Renewable Heat (SSRH). The SSRH is a Government funded initiative designed to increase the energy generated from renewable sources in the heat sector, whilst also reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The scheme is open to commercial, industrial, agricultural, district heating, public sector and other non-domestic heat users and is administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI).

The SSRH provides an operational support for biomass boilers and anaerobic digestion heating systems and an installation grant for renewable heating systems using heat pumps

In line with the agreed Sectoral Emissions Ceilings and the Climate Action Plan commitment to deliver up to 5.7 TWh of biomethane to further accelerate the reduction of overall economy-wide emissions, an obligation on the heat sector to include renewable heat will be introduced by 2024. The introduction of this Obligation will incentivise the use of renewable heat, while spreading the obligation across all non-renewable fuel types.