Commenting on the Oireachtas Agricultural Committee debate on TAMS which took place on Wednesday 18th March, Ciaran Kells Chair person of the Micro-Renewable Energy Federation said that removing the farm home energy use from the qualifying criteria for TAMS effectively rules out almost all Drystock and Tillage farms from solar PV grant supports under TAMS.
Mr. Kells said: “The farm home would account for up to 70% of the electricity use on many drystock farms so removing the farm house from eligibility effectively makes a TAMS grant application completely unviable for most Drystock and Tillage farmers.”
Mr. Kells said that the Minister for Agriculture needs to bring clarity to the process for farmers. He repeated MREF’s call that the Government should either properly fund the solar PV TAMS grant wallet, or do the decent thing and remove solar PV supports totally from TAMS and allow farmers focus on the other SEAI and Tax supports available for renewable energy investments.
Mr. Kells said: “What is happening now is that Department encouraging farmers to apply for a solar PV grant and then rejecting 90% of the applications they receive. This is an insult to the efforts and costs incurred by individual farmers and their micro-generation systems designers and installers to progress a solar PV project.”
“Either the Minister and the Department decide to fund the solar PV TAMS grants for all applicants, or they should do the decent thing and remove it completely from TAMS until monies are available to fund it properly,” he added.
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