The Renewable Energy Feed in Tariff (REFIT) is a Government scheme designed to stimulate the growth of the renewable energy industry in Ireland, and prices are payable on energy produced from wind, ocean and biomass sources.
The current support price is €66 per megawatt of electricity produced and applies to large wind based projects.
Subject to State aid approval, the minister's announcement marks the beginning of payment of tariffs for new categories of renewable energy.
In order to guarantee financial return for investors, these prices will not subject to indexation (CPI) and will be payable for a period of fifteen years.
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Biomass: AD and high efficiency CHP) A price of €120 per megawatt of energy produced.
Offshore wind: A price of €140 per megawatt of energy produced.
Ocean Energy: (Wave and tidal) A price of €220 per megawatt of energy produced.
In order to be eligible for REFIT, developers will require planning permission, signed grid connection offer and an offer of a power purchase agreement from a registered supply company.
The next grouping of renewable electricity grid connection offers, referred to as the Gate 3 process, is currently underway and the new tariffs will facilitate some of the developers involved in this process to progress their projects through the financial planning stages.
"Governments worldwide are moving in a low carbon direction," said Minister Ryan. "The economies of the future will be based on alternative energy sources, rather than a carbon based supply.
"Clean energy will help provide the answer to our economic and energy difficulties. Developing a viable renewable industry will not only stimulate economic growth and reduce our overall level of carbon emissions, but will help us reduce our dependence on imported oil and gas," he said.
"This is a relatively new sector, and project developers must be confident of a return on their investments. For this reason, we've fixed support prices up to 2025, as an incentive and assistance for new projects."
(PR/GK)
