Coillte hoping energy white paper will harness Irish forestry resource

Coillte hopes the Government’s white paper on energy, due later this year, will see Ireland begin to harness its largely untapped private sector forestry resource.

Coillte Enterprise managing director, Mark Foley, said Ireland can move towards heat energy self-sufficiency by building a bio-energy industry around our one million cubic metres of private sector forestry.

For this to progress, however, landowners want delivery on the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) tariff agreed with the Government, Mr Foley told attendees at the Irish BioEnergy Association (IrBEA) annual conference.