The Green Party have expressed disappointment in relation to the rooftop solar scheme.

Leader of the party Eamon Ryan TD said the party is disappointed that "what is proposed is not part of a fundamental shift to widespread solar generation".

He said: "The support being offered is a grant, instead of guaranteeing a right to sell surplus electricity back to the grid at a fixed price. Any electricity put into the grid will not be paid for. The result is that the scheme suggests that surplus electricity should be diverted to water heating. This is a low value use of electricity and in fact any house with a solar hot water panel already has enough hot water for the entire summer.

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"Worse still, the grant scheme is only for owner-occupied dwellings, not commercial rooftops. Although warehouses and factories can be very large, rooftop solar is generally too small a scale to go through the bureaucracy of the auction and grid connection system in the recently released Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (RESS)."

(CD)