Heatwave sunshine could have powered 500,000 homes

The Irish solar industry is losing out during the heatwave due to the lack of Government support even as records were being broken for energy production in the UK.

According to the Irish Solar Energy Association, more than 500,000 homes would have basked in renewable solar energy over the past two weeks if the Government had put in place the Renewable Energy Support Scheme (RESS) which has been in development by the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment (DCCAE) for the past three years.

RESS is intended to build on a previous scheme, the Renewable Energy Feed in Tariff (REFIT) programme which ran until December 2015 and guaranteed a minimum price for electricity produced by wind and biomass projects for a 15-year period but none for the solar industry.