Stan Nangle, Green Party candidate for Waterford County Council, is urging homeowners and farmers who produce their own electricity to sign up to a new scheme that will pay them for any spare energy they generate.
Under a programme announced yesterday by the Green Party’s Energy Minister Eamon Ryan, there will be incentives for small-scale generation of electricity for domestic users with wind and water turbines, solar panels, anaerobic digesters and combined heat and power (CHP) units.
The first 4,000 people to sign up to the scheme with the ESB will get a guaranteed price of 19 cents per kWh. Non ESB customers will get 10c per kWh.
“The rules have now changed. Before, you received your power from a central source and paid for it. Now you can generate electricity for yourself and be paid for the excess you don’t use. We can use our abundant natural resources to bolster the economy, create skilled, lasting, green-collar jobs and reduce carbon emissions at the same time”, said Mr Nangle.
“This type of long-term investment with a guaranteed return, represents the best value for spending and lending. It is the type of development that will help create employment opportunities in rural areas and enable people to become skilled in an up-and-coming area of technology”.
