The role assigned to farmers and rural areas under the plan, aside from participation in CAP agri-environmental programmes such as GLAS and BDGP, is to develop two types of innovative pilot projects:

  • Biogas production from agricultural and food waste to be developed in towns from slurry and other waste streams drawn from farms in their catchment area. The gas will be supplied to local gas networks.
  • "Climate-smart countryside" projects to establish the feasibility of the home and farm becoming net exporters of electricity through the adaptation of smart metering, smart grids and small-scale renewable technologies, for example solar, heat pumps and wind.

    • The bulk of the €21.8bn in NDP investment allocated to reducing carbon emissions focuses on replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources in electricity, heating and transport.

    Most of this will come from big utilities, such as Eirgird, the ESB and Bord na Móna, as they upgrade their power stations and networks to reduce emissions.

    Renewable heat and electricity schemes

    Two previously announced schemes are also mentioned in the plan:

  • The Support Scheme for Renewal Heat, which will subsidise commercial users of heat using biomass or biogas in their boilers. The allocation for this scheme is €300m for the next 10 years, or €30m per year. Industry sources were hoping for three times as much when the scheme was announced last year.
  • The Renewable Electricity Support Scheme, which will be of most direct interest to farmers as it pays a premium for power from sources including solar panels installed on agricultural land. The NDP does not include a budget or a timeline for this scheme.

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