Colm Burke (Cork North-Central, Fine Gael)
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150. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the amount of uptake for the small-scale renewable electricity support scheme for SMEs; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54203/25]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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The Programme for Government commits to promoting the Small-Scale Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (SRESS). The scheme provides financial incentives to develop smaller scale solar and wind energy and was designed with two support mechanisms to suit two distinct cohorts of applicants.

The first phase of SRESS was launched in July 2023. This sees both SRESS and the Microgeneration Support Scheme (MSS) providing grant support to businesses, farms, public buildings, and communities with grants that support solar installations. These non-domestic scheme grants are supporting renewables self-consumers to invest in systems of up to 1MW in size. Renewables self-consumers are electricity customers that produce renewable electricity for their own use. They are also legally entitled to sell any excess electricity that they produce to their electricity supplier, or else store it for their own use.

The SRESS export phase (SRESS 1) is designed for SME, farm and community export only projects above 50kW to 6MW. SRESS offers a simpler route to market for the groups, with fixed tariffs for solar and wind, aligning more closely to the capacity of these sectors. All export projects up to 1MW can also apply to SRESS, and need not be SME, farm or community projects.

The scheme opened for applications in January. The SRESS application form together with the terms and conditions, a non-technical summary and a guide to first steps in starting an export or self-consumption renewable project, are available on the Department’s website at www.gov.ie/SRESS

Five SME and five community applications have been accepted into the scheme. My Department is also processing additional SME and community applications that have been received.

Colm Burke (Cork North-Central, Fine Gael)
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151. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the amount of uptake of the non-domestic microgen grant scheme for electricity used on farms to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54205/25]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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The second phase of the Micro-generation Support Scheme (MSS) commenced on 22 September 2022 when the SEAI extended the solar PV grant scheme to the non-domestic sector, including schools, businesses, small farms and community enterprises, for installations up to 6kW.

An extended funding range from €2,700 to €162,600 was introduced in July 2023 to support non-domestic installation sizes between 7 kWp and 1,000 kWp (1 MW) capacity, on a pilot basis to the end of 2023. This includes cohorts typically covered under the Small-Scale Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (SRESS).

Since its launch, the amended Non Domestic Micro Generation (NDMG) scheme has proved an overwhelming success and as such, it has now been extended for 2025, at the same level of grant supports for installations up to 1 MW.

The total approved applications on the NDMG scheme in the Agriculture Forestry and Fishery sector amounts to €2,452,197 which equates to 165 applications. Of this, SEAI have paid out €1,240,730 (127 applications) and will result in a installed capacity of over 10 MW.

There have been a wide range of sectors supported within agriculture such as beef, dairy, poultry, pig, tillage, cultivation (potato) as well as horticulture. There is a good geographic spread of farms supported with almost every county in the country having been supported with a NDMG grant.

The TAMS (Targeted Agriculture Modernisation Scheme) by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine also provides very attractive grants for Solar PV including Battery Storage for systems designed to meet the on-site requirements of the farm. An agricultural applicant is free to apply to either scheme depending on what suits their situation. An applicant cannot apply to both schemes for same installation.