The new phase of the Small Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (SRESS) is designed mainly for solar arrays but will also cover small wind farm projects.
It will cover power output of between 50 kilowatts (kw) and 6 megawatts (MW) – roughly the capacity of between 125 and 12,500 solar panels.
The lower end of the scale is expected to suit buildings such as shops, schools, swimming pools and community centres.
The higher end would require multiple interconnected large rooftops such as in an industrial estate or possibly fields for ground-mounted arrays.
SRESS phase two is intended to fill the gap between existing schemes that apply only to very small and very large electricity producers.
The existing microgeneration scheme serves householders and small property owners who supply some of their own electricity through rooftop solar and get credits for passing or ‘exporting’ any surplus power to the national grid.
Existing RESS arrangements are for industrial scale wind and solar run by power companies that generate electricity full time for profit.
A restricted SRESS introduced last summer applies to small businesses and groups with under 1MW of solar installed for their own use but with a small surplus to export.
That arrangement will continue but the new SRESS is for projects designed to generate electricity specifically for export.
Under the SRESS, business participation will be limited to small and medium enterprises.
The State is setting guaranteed payments or tariffs per megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity generated.
Tariffs vary slightly, with businesses, including farms, offered €80 per MWh of wind power and €120 per MWh of solar while community participants will get €90 and €140.
The differences recognise that wind energy is more plentiful than solar and that community groups have greater difficulty when it comes to accessing loans to finance installations.
The payments will be made by whichever commercial power supplier is buying the electricity to feed into the national grid.
The state will then reimburse that company, making up the difference if the price it has to pay to the SRESS supplier is higher than market price and taking back money where the price is below market price.
Full terms and conditions are to be published in July and the scheme will open for applications later in the year.
Its outline is announced now to give prospective participants time to assess their suitability to take part.
Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan said the SRESS would be a “key building block of the Government’s solar strategy”.
That strategy aims to have 5 gigawatts (GW) of solar electricity capacity installed by the end of 2025 and 8GW by 2030.
Currently just under 1GW is available, putting Ireland in the bottom seven EU countries for solar energy.
The overall aim is to have 80pc of the country’s electricity generated by renewables by 2030 which is almost double the current output.
