Let farmers sell excess energy to the grid – Codd

A local election candidate is calling for legislation change to allow family farms to be able to sell renewable energy back to the grid. Jim Codd, running for Aontu, said that it was both an economical and environmental necessity to give farmers the ability to produce commercial energy.

“65% of Irish family farms are not sustainable at the moment according to recent studies,” Mr Codd said. “At the same time, Ireland faces up to €600 million in fines from the EU if we can’t cut our carbon emissions. It’s time for progressive thinking to tackle these big problems.”

“Irish farms are well placed to produce small scale wind energy, small scale solar energy and bio digestion. This could add as much as €10,000 to their annual income. Yet Ireland is the last country in Europe to provide a feed in tariff to allow this to be done. This must be changed immediately.”

Mr Codd said that Aontu was also intent on pushing Minister Naughton to make plans to provide a grant-aided scheme for domestic installations of PV (photovoltaic) solar a reality.

“75,000 family farms have suitable roof space to deliver up to 250MW electricity per year from roof-top PV solar installations. It is also thought that 500,000 homes and 50,000 businesses could collect similar clean energy, which could be sold back to the grid.”

“There are 4,000 family farms in County Wexford today but it’s estimated that only 1,400 of them are independently economically sustainable. The others have incomes of less than €24,000 per year, €10,000 less than the average industrial wage. Imagine what the ability to sell excess clean energy back to the grid could do for these farms, the local economy in the county and our environment?”