The Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment is finalising the heads of bill for the Renewable Heat Obligation (RHO), a major biomethane conference in Dublin has heard.

The long-promised key piece of legislation is aimed at driving the use of renewable fuels in the heat sector.

“That will require approval by cabinet, and once approved we will begin to draft the final legislation to underpin the scheme ahead of its introduction,” Alan Dillon, Minister of State at the Department said on Wednesday.

Tom O’Brien, group chief executive of Nephin Energy told the audience he had spoken to Minister Darragh O’Brien who told him the target for the head of bill was before the Dáil’s summer recess.

O’Brien added that the RHO needs to be ambitious and effective, and that it is needed now as developers cannot built an anaerobic digestion industry without demand.

The need for the support from the RHO for the industry was also highlighted by Graeme Lochhead, managing director of Nephin Renewable Gas.

“If there is no announcement of an RHO by Christmas, I cannot see how the money [to develop the industry] will be there,” he said.

Longer-term investment

He told the Irish Farmers Journal that Nephin’s large balance sheet and longer-term investment horizon meant that his company was in a position to wait if needed, but the equity and venture capital required for the wider industry to develop would find a home in other countries if support from government here was too slow in arriving.

A key factor which has delayed the RHO, has been the requirement for a multiplier for the use of Irish biomethane, as without this, industrial users would be as motivated to import biogas as they would be to use Irish production.

Carbon certificates

Were this to be the case an RHO may do little to support to expansion of Irish biogas production. The use of a multiplier, which would grant more carbon certificates to Irish production than imported fuel, needed to be justified at a European level.

With the Dáil set to adjourn for its summer recess on July 18, there are just over three weeks for the heads of the bill to be published. Despite the numerous delays to the plans to kickstart the biomethane industry, Minister Dillion did repeat the Government’s target of “up to 5.7 terawatts of biomethane per annum” for the industry.