Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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46. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the number of businesses that have benefitted for the business energy upgrade scheme for each of the past ten years. [17287/25]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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The Business Energy Upgrade Scheme (BEUS) grant support, administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), provides rapid grant aid options for SMEs to upgrade their buildings. It was opened for applications on 6 November 2024, with the official launch of the scheme and an associated publicity campaign is scheduled for 11 April this year. Webpages (www.seai.ie/grants/business-grants/rapid-approval) and the application portal went live on 6 November 2024.

The BEUS will provide rapid grant aid options for SMEs to upgrade their buildings as follows:

• Up to 30% support for a range of energy upgrade measures
• Up to 50% support to optimise existing systems and support retrofit design costs
• The rapid approval grant model provides immediate offers to businesses to enable quick delivery of investments
• There has been very strong initial engagement with the scheme with over 200 draft applications in progress as businesses review the potential options. 78 offers have been made to date amounting to €1.82 million. All potential measures are represented within this package of applications which is a good initial indicator of the public’s interest in the overall suite of technologies provided.