Written answers
Thursday, 2 February 2023
Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment
Environmental Schemes
Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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177. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the capital, current and total 2023 budget allocation for capital investment for the decarbonisation process, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5376/23]
Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take PQs 5375/23, 5376/23 and 5377/23 together.
In Budget 2022, Government announced that €55 million would be made available under the National Recovery & Resilience Plan to assist enterprises through the Green Transition Fund. This budget is split into two streams, the Enterprise Emissions Reduction Investment Fund (EERIF) (€30m) and the Climate Planning Fund for Business (€25m) which will both run from 2022 until the end of 2025.
The EERIF is available to manufacturing companies of all sizes and provides capital grant aid to incentivise adoption of CO2abatement technologies in their processes. It facilitates accelerated action on potential cost savings and abatement by funding the installation of Energy Metering and Monitoring Control Systems and carbon-neutral, low to medium temperature process heating such as electric heat-pumps or biogas processes.
The objectives of the fund are to:
- Reduce the payback period of key carbon reducing technologies at plant level by incentivising companies to invest in, and adopt these technologies; and,
- Increase the resilience of companies to climate change and assist them to accelerate progress towards a net carbon zero pathway
The EERIF is made up of three separate schemes, outlined below:
- Capital investment for decarbonisation processes [Scheme 1]: To incentivise companies to decarbonise through investment in CO2 reducing technologies in manufacturing combustion processes by reducing the payback period of key carbon reducing technologies at plant level.
- Capital investment in Energy Metering [Scheme 2]: To incentivise companies to put in place monitoring and targeting systems to begin accounting for the carbon footprint of their activities
- Research, Development and Innovation [Scheme 3]:
- R&D Feasibility: Assistance to carry out explorative work assessing the resource requirements and the strengths, weaknesses opportunities and threats of a potential R&D project in the area of sustainability
- Innovation Vouchers: Providing assistance to SMEs to explore a business opportunity or problem with a registered knowledge provider in the areas of sustainability and decarbonisation
- Exploring Innovation: The Exploring Innovation grant will promote better planning of R&D, innovation or international collaboration projects in the areas of sustainability and decarbonisation through prototype development, analysis of commercial feasibility, investigating solutions from 3rd level and encouraging companies to think strategically around disruptive technologies.
- Research & Development: Assisting the development of new or substantially improved products, services or processes, in the areas of sustainability and decarbonisation, which will have a competitive advantage in a company’s target market and provide enhanced customer experience.
2023 | |||
---|---|---|---|
Client Offer | No. Projects Approved | Approval € | Payment € |
2. Capital investment for Energy Monitoring & Tracking (EM&T) Systems | <5 | 12,304.00 | 0 |
2022 | |||
Client Offer | No. Projects Approved | Approval € | Payment € |
1. Capital investment for decarbonisation processes | <5 | 309,000.00 | 0 |
2. Capital investment for Energy Monitoring & Tracking (EM & T) Systems | <5 | 84,851.00 | 0 |
3.i. R&D Feasibility | 0 | 0 | 0 |
3.ii. Innovation Vouchers | 0 | 0 | 0 |
3.iii. Exploring Innovation | <5 | 325,968.00 | 0 |
3.iv. R&D Fund | <5 | 128,781.00 | 0 |
2021 | |||
The Enterprise Emission Reduction Investment Fund was launched in 2022 and therefore no funding was approved or paid in 2021. |
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