Promoting Sustainable Energy - Dempsey Launches €11m Grants Programme for Combined Heat and Power

Noel Dempsey, T.D., Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources today launched an €11m grants package to encourage industry and commercial users to generate their own electricity and heat.

The "Combined Heat and Power (CHP)" units simultaneously generate heat and electricity in a single process on site. By combining the electricity generating and heat processes CHP saves around 25% of the energy that would have been required to produce electricity in a conventional power station and heat in separate heat only boilers, and is therefore a very efficient way of meeting heat and energy needs. Gas is the predominant fuel used for generating CHP, however, they can also burn a wide range of other fuels including biomass fuels (anaerobic digestion (AD) and wood residue).

The new CHP Deployment Programme will provide grant support to assist the deployment of small-scale (up to 1MWe) fossil fired CHP and biomass CHP systems.

From today Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI) will accept applications for small-scale fossil fuel units within the range of greater than 50kWe and less than 1MWe. Typical applications for units in this range include, hotels, leisure centres, small hospitals, offices and many commercial and public buildings, which have a substantial heat requirement. Later this year SEI will also begin a micro-scale CHP pilot, which will examine the use of this scale of CHP in small commercial and domestic applications. This trial will be linked to an innovative "smart metering" project in Dundalk, where the DCMNR, SEI, ESB Networks, and the Commission for Energy Regulation are collaborating to test new "smart meters" which will give consumer real time information on their energy use and costs.

Likely applications of biomass CHP include board mills and the food industry. There will be no limit on the size of installations which can be granted aided if fuelled by biomass, however, because of the potential scale of projects under this category, a separate "call for proposals" will be launched by Sustainable Energy Ireland later this year.

The programme will run over a five year period and is part of a €65m programme announced in Budget 2006 which includes the recently launched €22m Bioheat grants programme, €27m Greener Homes domestic grants programme and a grants programme for biofuels facilities to be launched later this year. The recently launched Renewable Energy Feed-in-Tariff (REFIT) and the €200m biofuels excise relief programme will also provide new supports for the renewable electricity and transport fuel sectors.

The CHP programme will deliver 10 – 15 MWe Biomass CHP, and 100 – 200 small-scale fossil fuel CHP installations, generating 10 – 20MWe of high efficiency CHP electricity.

In heating terms alone, the Biomass element of the programme will displace the equivalent of 36 million litres of heating oil per annum. Together with the recently launched Bioheat programme, which provides grant aid for wood chip and pellet heating facilities, the two programmes will displace almost 100 million litres of heating oil per annum, which represents 13% of the heating oil consumed in the commercial sector in 2004. "This is a significant achievement" Minister Dempsey said "It paves the way for a new renewable electricity and heating sector in Ireland, which will dramatically reduce our dependence on imported, polluting fossil fuels".

The new scheme will achieve an estimated saving of 120,000 tonnes of CO2. Combined with the Bioheat programme, 280,000 tonnes per annum of CO2 savings will be achieved in the commercial sector.

Earlier this week, Minister Dempsey established a Bio-energy Ministerial Task Force. The Task Force, which comprises Ministers of all of the major Departments involved in biomass energy generation, resources and funding, and those concerned with emissions reductions, security of supply and development of the local economy and competitiveness. "The Task Force will provide a strong foundation for future policy on the use of biomass in renewable electricity, heat and transport. The CHP, Biofuels, Bioheat, Greener Homes and REFIT packages are all part of an emerging support infrastructure to encourage all sectors of the economy to switch to renewable fuels or sustainable energy generation. We will build on these successes over the coming months and the Green Paper on Energy will provide a further forum in which industry and the public in general can input into the policy formation process" Minister Dempsey said.

ENDS

Note for Editors:

Photographs of this launch will be distributed by and available from Maxwell's Picture Agency on: Tel: 01 830 8072 or email: maxpics@eircom.net /  www.maxwellphotography.ie

To avail of this grant scheme please contact Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI) at chpgrants@sei.ie or Tel: 01-836 9080. For more information on the scheme please visit the SEI website at www.sei.ie/chpgrants

The actual Combined Heat and Power generation plant at St. Patrick’s Hospital produces a peak output of 334kW of electricity and 500kW of heat (by way of indicative comparison, a standard domestic house for example would consume c. 2kW - 4kW of electricity when occupied). The annual energy cost savings delivered by the hospital's CHP plant are in excess of Euro50,000 per annum, resulting in an investment payback period of less than 5 years (the plant's lifecycle meanwhile is 10 - 15 years).

The CHP plant is also displacing approximately 1000 tonnes of CO2 per annum and helps Ireland to achieve its carbon reduction commitments under Kyoto.