Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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31. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will provide details of the number of SMEs that have participated in the business energy upgrade scheme since its inception; and a breakdown of the measures supported, by county, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [67622/25]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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The Business Energy Upgrades Scheme is funded by my Department and administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) as part of a suite of business supports. In 2024 alone, the SEAI Business Supports provided grant support of over €40 million to over 3,000 businesses significantly supporting energy cost reduction, competitiveness, and emissions reduction.

The Business Energy Upgrades Scheme was opened for applications in November 2024 and offers businesses access to rapid approval grant funding for a range of retrofit measures for buildings such as hotels, offices, retail and restaurants. There has been strong activity on the application portal with a large volume of draft applications (over 550) as people review the potential options. Typically, some time is required by the commercial sector to prepare the necessary details before submitting the application. 167 applications have been approved with a combined total in offers of €2.99 million supporting a total of 304 measures. All nine measures available 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.

The Business Energy Upgrades Scheme is critical to supporting a higher rate of commercial building retrofit and is expected to double the number of commercial building retrofits and heat pumps supported from 2024 to 2025.

A table showing the breakdown by county is attached.

A county breakdown, with number of businesses per county, is in the table beneath: