This article is from page 58 of the 2005-10-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 58 JPG
SUITABLE Clare enterprises can apply for a share of €119 million to be made available by the government to support renewable energy projects over 15 years. There is a possibility of substantial sup- port for developments in wind energy, biomass, landfill gas, anaerobic diges- tion plants and hydroelectricity — and some of the savings on the costs of im- porting fuel are to be re-directed to the rural economy.
The technologies listed above cannot as yet fully compete with conventional electricity generation in an open com- petitive market.
Special financial support is therefore needed, and this can be justified under EU competition and state aids rules un- der the EU’s environmental protection guidelines.
Noel Dempsey, Minister for Commu- nications, Marine and Natural Resourc- es, has changed the system of providing grants for developing renewable energy SAI Coa nee
The former method was competitive tendering under the Alternative Energy Requirement (AER), but this 1s now to be a fixed price tariff system. These new fixed price tariffs per kilowatt-hour are: large wind energy (over 5 megawatts) 5.7 cent; small wind energy (under 5 MW) 5.9 cent; biomass (landfill gas) 7.0 cent; and hydroelectricity and biomass technologies 7.2 cent.
The new measure provides support for a contract with a registered supply com- pany to purchase all the output of the selected stations at guaranteed prices for up to fifteen years. The confidence engendered by long-term nature of this contract is expected to generate suffi- cient investment finance and loan capi- tal, which perhaps might not otherwise be provided.
The Department says that it will sup-
port a minimum of 400 MW of new renewable capacity, which will be in- creased to accommodate any slippage rates from previous competitions.
Mr Dempsey said the benefits would include secure clean environmentally- friendly indigenous electricity, and a major reduction in greenhouse gas emis- sions from the electricity sector.
There would be an estimated annual reduction of approximately | million tonnes of carbon dioxide, which has been identified as the chief culprit in glo- bal warning. A corresponding reduction in costs of over 20 million euro annually
for greenhouse gas emissions permits up to the 2010 target levels 1s also forecast.
Dependency on imported fossil fuels would be reduced and the national trade balance would be improved by redi- recting money previously spent on im- porting energy back into the rural Irish economy.
He predicted that this redistributed money would facilitate the creation of new long-term jobs in renewable energy equipment operation and maintenance, and of construction jobs during the building phase.