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Much awaited progress on several pieces of Ireland’s renewable energy policy puzzle is expected within weeks – Government reshuffle permitting.
With the development of wind farms on land still controversial and several high-profile cases before the courts, planning permission rules for turbines have been due an overhaul for a long time. The review of the current 2006 wind energy development guidelines is due to address issues such as noise, light flicker and distances between a turbine and its neighbours.
A decision by the European Court of Justice in Belgium last year means that this process must now go through a full environmental assessment and public consultation. A spokesman for the Department of Housing has told the Irish Farmers Journal that the Government “will make a statement on the matter in the coming weeks, outlining the timelines for implementation of the various elements”. Separate discussions are ongoing on planning rules for small-scale anaerobic digesters.
BioEnergy Ireland
Meanwhile, the Department of Communications, Climate Action and the Environment is preparing three aspects of the policy that will decide how much farmers can participate in renewable energy generation. Next in line is the establishment of BioEnergy Ireland, the joint venture between Bord na Móna and Coillte due to create a distribution network to collect biomass such as timber products or energy crops and bring it to the energy users, such as power stations.
Minister Denis Naughten (pictured) told the Irish Farmers Journal in an interview earlier this year that this was a crucial piece to remove the need for energy users to buy from individual growers.
The idea here is to establish the functioning market that failed to materialise when earlier attempts to develop a miscanthus industry floundered a decade ago. A spokesperson for the Department of Communications, Climate Action and the Environment said the minister would shortly bring a memo to Government, with a plan to establish BioEnergy Ireland formally in the second half of this year.
The key elements of renewable development will be the two support schemes expected to subsidise heat and electricity production. For renewable electricity, the public consultation phase is scheduled for next month, with a target start date in the first half of next year pending Government- and EU-approval.
Renewable heat incentive scheme
Following the public consultation on the proposed renewable heat incentive (RHI) scheme, the Department of Communications, Climate Action and the Environment is currently reviewing the 119 submissions received through the public consultation this spring and still intends to announce the details of the scheme by the end of this year.
Minister Naughten recently told the Irish Farmers Journal that the scheme would target large-scale users including Bord na Móna.
He justifies this focus by the need to establish an industry with large industrial players first, and to convert Bord na Móna from peat to renewables to preserve jobs at the company, which has a large footprint in his Roscommon-Galway constituency. This was further illustrated on the renewable electricity side, when the ESB and Bord na Móna announced the creation of a joint venture to create four large solar farms on Bord na Móna land in the midlands last month. The project will occupy four locations in Roscommon, Offaly and Kildare, and generate enough power for 150,000 households.
This policy orientation is causing some frustration among farmers, many of whom have solar plans or are exploring small-scale heat generation options such as anaerobic digesters. Farming organisations have called on the Government to include on-farm energy generation in support schemes and there is still hope that this will happen.
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