The Minister with responsibility for promoting renewable energy, Mr Dermot Ahern, has said his Department is reviewing the sector's financial support process which has been widely criticised by renewable energy producers.
The Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources is finalising a consultation document "putting up the options" for a revised process in which "nothing is ruled in or out," said the Minister.
The present Alternative Energy Requirement system is based on a competitive tendering process whereby contracts are awarded to producers who bid to produce renewable energy at the lowest prices.
"I would anticipate that we may very well be looking at a new system," he told The Irish Times, shortly before opening the Centre for Renewable Energy at Dundalk Institute of Technology on Monday night.Asked if he accepted that the current system had failed, given that, during the time period Ireland produced 180 megawatts of renewable energy, Germany produced 13,000 megawatts, he said "we have been slower than most". He added: "I want to see more action and less talk."
The institute's Centre for Renewable Energy will assist "this country in coming to terms with the stringent terms of the Kyoto Agreement".