Irish raise renewable energy target as EU debate heats up (15% by 2010)

[jpak]

http://www.engineerlive.com/power-engineer/renewable-energy/16738/irish-raise-renewable-energy-target-as-eu-debate-heats-up.thtml

rish minister for communications, marine and natural resources Noel Dempsey has set a target to treble the contribution made by renewable energy from 5percent to 15 percent of electricity produced by 2010.

His announcement came at the launch of a new publication called Renewable Energy Development 2006. The report provides a broad overview of current policies in the field of renewable energy and serves as a concise introduction to the topical issues and challenges in the area.

As such, it considers alternative technologies including combined heat and power (CHP), ocean power, wind power and the family of bioenergy technologies.

“The CHP, Biofuels, Bioheat, Greener Homes and REFIT (renewable energy feed-in tariff) 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. Our support programmes and the accelerated liberalisation programme for green electricity have more than doubled the capacity of renewable energy powered electricity generating plants connected to the electricity network in the last two years,” he said.

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