26. Deputy Mairéad Farrell asked the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment if he has engaged with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage regarding developing guidelines for solar farms. [65912/26]

Solar energy, through rooftops and large scale solar farms, is rapidly increasingly in importance in terms of supplying growing energy demand and reducing dependence on imported fossil fuels, both in Ireland and globally. Last month, I announced that Ireland reached a record 3 Gigawatts of solar generation capacity, with utility scale solar meeting over a third of national electricity demand on the grid at one point.

Government policy is focused on maintaining this momentum and harnessing our indigenous solar energy as a part of a renewable, secure and affordable energy system.

To support this ambition, the Programme for Government sets out a commitment to introduce planning guidelines for solar farms. Planning matters fall within the remit of my colleague, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, who, I have been advised, is preparing a new national planning statement on solar energy under the new Planning and Development Act 2024.

I am further advised that, as part of that work, a scoping process remains at an early stage to identify the component factors relevant to the preparation of a national planning statement for solar energy development.

The ESB has indicated that Ireland could expect the 8GW target for solar in Ireland by 2030 to require an area equal to 0.26% of all agricultural land, based on a similar study in the UK.

Under the Government’s Accelerating Renewable Electricity Taskforce, officials from my Department will continue to liaise and work closely with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage on the ongoing planning reforms, including the alignment of local development plans and regional spatial and economic strategies with national targets and regional allocations for solar and wind in the National Planning Framework.