Despite earlier hopes that Ireland may obtain State aid clearance from the European Commission to open the full Support Scheme for Renewable Heat by Christmas, Ray Langton of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) told the Energy in Poultry event that this would now happen in 2019.

The SEAI has answered a series of questions from Brussels and expects that the next exchange will be to rubberstamp approval, but “this is like passing an exam and I don’t know the date of the Leaving Cert results,” said Langton.

In the meantime, he encouraged farmers and their suppliers of energy equipment to study the terms and conditions for heat pump grants already opened under the scheme, as 15-year tariffs to support biomass and biogas boilers will come with similar requirements such as building insulation and heat metering.

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He also gave an example of the gains the scheme could represent for a typical poultry farm (Table 2), though he warned that each project would be different and assessed individually.

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