As you can see from our previous blog on grants there is not much support in Ireland for renewable projects compared with the UK. This is surprising considering that the following targets are required by Europe by 2020,
Overall renewables target – 16% of total final consumption to come from renewable energy in 2020.
There are also individual targets for RES-E, RES-T and RES-H. These targets are as follows:
- Renewables contribution to gross electricity consumption of 40% by 2020.
- Renewables (biofuels & the renewable portion of electricity) contribution to transport energy of 10% by 2020.
- Renewable contribution to heat (Thermal requirement – heating & cooling) of 12% by 2020.
How can we expect to achieve this when the Irish government is not doing enough compared to other countries?
Pat Rabbit has been quoted as saying
“The development of renewable energy is central to overall energy policy in Ireland. Renewable energy reduces dependence on fossil fuels, improves security of supply, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions creating environmental benefits while delivering green jobs to the economy, thus contributing to national competitiveness and the jobs and growth agenda.”
Renewable energy costs more to install but the savings that are realised annually are significant. We suggest that to achieve our targets there has to be more incentives for the consumer to make the move over to renewable energy. One way to do this is by having more grants available to help with the cost of switching. If we can get people to move to renewable energy they will be reducing their energy costs in the long term it is usually just the initial cost that may be a deterrent to people from making the switch.
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