Minister annouces budget increase for final reconnect applications

Energy Minister Nigel Dodds announced an increase in budget for Reconnect in 2008/09 from £1.5million to £4million following a reprioritisation of budget.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment has today issued the final letters of offer to 1,300 consumers under Reconnect.

This Direct Rule initiative, which was always due to end on 31 March 2008, will now have supported grant claims of £6million up to the end of March 2008, which equates to almost 2,500 completed installations.

The minister said: “This increased budget provision brings the total funding available for Reconnect to £10million and will allow a further 1,690 Reconnect installations to be supported.

“DETI will therefore support, through Reconnect, around 4,100 installations from 2006 to 2009. This will equate to an estimated 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide savings throughout the life of the installations.”

In addition to achieving its objective of 4,000 installations, other objectives of the Reconnect programme were to create a self sustaining market, create job opportunities, reduce demand for grid electricity and increase competitiveness.

The minister continued: “The fact remains that while Reconnect has stimulated demand for micro generation technologies, its potential contribution in displacing fossil fuelled derived electricity remains at less than 1% of our 12% target of electricity consumed from renewable sources by 2012. The contribution however in relation to renewable heat technologies, and hence carbon emission reduction, may be more significant with the most popular technologies being solar hot water panels and wood fuelled boilers.

“The Department is therefore unable to support any further claims within its current budgetary allocation without evaluating the effectiveness of the current scheme.”

Over the life of the scheme Reconnect received 9,000 applications, of which 6,600 received offers of assistance. However to date around 25% of offers issued have not proceeded to installation.

Notes to Editors:

1. Reprioritisation of the Department’s capital budget will be achieved through managing the timing of Capital projects elsewhere in the Department without compromising the delivery of other important programmes.
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