Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)
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89. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will consider offering interest free loans to local authorities to allow for the installation of solar panels on local authority owned houses whereby the panels would be owned by the local authority, who could use the credit for unused energy sold back to the grid to pay down the loan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6674/26]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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My department's Energy Efficiency Retrofit Programme (EERP) provides grant funding to local authorities to upgrade their social housing stock to a minimum B2 BER rating. It is expected that 36,500 local authority owned homes will be retrofitted under this programme out to 2030.

Works eligible under the EERP include attic and cavity wall insulation or external wall insulation where required, windows and doors replacement, heat pump installation and ancillary and associated works. These funded measures achieve the minimum B2 BER rating. Accordingly, solar PV installation is not generally supported.

That said, in limited circumstances, for dwellings with a floor area less than 55m2 and where it is not practical to achieve a Heat Loss Indicator (HLI) specified by the SEAI guidance, the maximum HLI may be increased to 2.6 on a pilot basis with additional fabric and air tightness requirements. Where this approach is adopted, installation of at least 1kWp of solar photovoltaic micro-generators on the dwelling with the heat pump is recommended, and is funded as eligible works under the EERP.

While works supported under the EERP are kept under continuous consideration, there are no plans to expand the programme to include additional measures at this stage.