OVER 20,000 Irish people have applied for grants to install wood, solar and thermal heat systems in their homes under the greener homes scheme operated for the Government by Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI), the Bioenergy 2008 conference was told yesterday in Athenry, Co Galway.
Pearse Buckley, biomass project manager with SEI, told the 150 delegates that there had already been 20,500 applications under the greener homes scheme launched in March 2006.
He said there had been 12,300 installations so far: 4,300 were pellet boilers, 4,700 solar thermal units and 3,300 heat pumps.
The conference, being held in association with Farmfest ’08, was told that thinnings from privately owned forests had the potential to heat 58,000 houses based on an average-sized house.
Teagasc forestry researcher Niall Farrelly said there were nearly 60,000 hectares of forestry over 15 years of age in the State, and research had shown that two-thirds of these plantations were now ready for thinning.
“Private planting of forests increased in the 1990s and these are now becoming ready for harvest. It is anticipated that half of the landowners will opt to thin, which could lift the annual output to 550,000 cubic metres per annum by 2015,” he said.
“A high percentage of this thinning volume, 340,000 cubic metres, has the potential to supply the wood energy market and this resource has an energy equivalent of 58 million litres of home heating oil,” he said.
This was enough energy to heat 58,000 Irish homes currently using an average of 1,000 litres of home heating oil, he told the conference.
However, growers were advised that while there were major opportunities in the provision of timber for fuel, even greater benefits flowed from “clustering” supplies and Teagasc was encouraging farmers to set up timber producer groups across the country.
Teagasc forestry development officer Stephen Meyen said that recent initiatives in Clare and Donegal had used the produce of first thinnings to supply the wood energy market for local and municipal heating requirements.
“Local farmers are pooling their resources together so that they can offer the market a secure multi-annual supply of timber,” he said.