Ireland's grid operator EirGrid has announced the terms and timeline for the fifth onshore renewable electricity support scheme, (RESS 5), the results of which are expected to be finalized on Oct. 10, 2025. The renewable energy auction's applications are due to open on May 29 for interested parties
According to the terms of the auction, successful applicants will be given an implementation agreement that will guarantee a letter of offer that will entitle the supplier that enters into a power purchase agreement (PPA) to receive RESS 5 support.
This support will be structured primarily as a two-way floating feed-in premium (FIP). The payment calculation process will be administered by the regulatory authority and the process for the payment of supports to suppliers and the payment of difference from suppliers will be administered by EirGrid.
Each applicant will be required to specify an offer price for their project in the auction. If successful, the applicant’s offer price will become the strike price for that project. This strike price will be adjusted annually in line with price indexes such as the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices for the EU 27 published by Eurostat.
Another strand of support will be offered in addition to the FIP. The Unrealised Available Energy Consumption is intended as a provision to de-risk a RESS 5 project’s exposure to uncertainty. It compensates, based on the strike price, for availability not converted to generation for reasons of either curtailment or oversupply. Payments may be made in respect of the hours for which the price is negative but no payments will be made for any generation during periods of negative prices.
All RESS 5 projects must establish a community benefit fund to be used for the well-being of the local community in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Visible progress
Ronan Power, CEO of Ireland's solar lobby association Solar Ireland (previously known as the Irish Solar Energy Association) said he was not in a position to comment on strike prices ahead of the auction. However, he said that projects from previous auctions are now being built and financed across the country.
“This visible progress reflects growing confidence in solar’s role in Ireland’s clean energy future,” he told pv magazine, adding that Ireland has around 1.7 GW of solar power now connected, “which is a great start – but we need to reach 8 GW by 2030.”
Power called for faster building of projects and said that RESS 5 can play a role in speeding up build times, along with the growing number of corporate power purchase agreements (CPPAs) Solar Ireland is seeing.
He also called for clarity on the future of government support for solar,” so that investors and developers can keep moving with confidence.”
In September 2024, Ireland announced its results for RESS 4, provisionally 959.85 MW of solar across 23 projects. The final average price for PV was €0.10476 ($0.12)/kWh. This price result was high compared to other European countries. When pv magazine spoke to local industry insiders and officials following the auction, they cited high costs, lack of government intervention, and grid infrastructure problems as reasons for the high price.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.