The energy costs of 80,000 Dublin homes will hopefully plummet with the Poolbeg incinerator heating project, according to Eamon Ryan.
Hot water produced by the incinerator will pump heat directly to homes and offices without the need for a boiler in each building.
The system will also provide massive environmental benefits for the city, with the potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 16,000 tonnes.
And the Climate Minister is “absolutely determined” for it to go ahead in the lifetime of the current Government.
He told Newstalk: “There are certain projects that are key and that is one of them because it is about eliminating the waste.
“As people know, the incinerator is running constantly pretty much now and the waste heat water from that is currently pumped out into the Liffey.
“So rather than wasting that and seeing it just heat up Dublin Bay effectively, what we are looking to do - and we have started this project - is to use that waste heat to heat buildings along the Quays. To heat our social housing in Ringsend and surrounding areas.
“I see it going to heat up Georgian Dublin because there it is going to be very difficult for us to retrofit buildings – to do the retrofitting we need to do across the country.
“Instead, it is far better to use that waste heat so every building has a cheap, reliable, secure source of hot water.”
The project remains a top priority even though the authorities have been far too slow to get moving.
“We have the right plans in place now, we have a clear, good climate action plan, we have a good national development plan. What we need to do is focus on delivery,” he added.
“The State is not fast enough. The State is not agile enough and there is not enough urgency, in my mind, in terms of delivering some of the solutions that will give us a better economy and give us a better local environment.
“So absolutely this is one of the first priorities.”
The Green Party leader said that the Government may also have to provide more than its €100 credit to support households that are facing sharp rising energy costs, and there are fears that the prices could increase further as tensions build on the Russia/Ukraine border.
He said: “In October, in the budget, we made a series of initiatives in terms of increasing the social welfare provisions, the fuel allowance and a number of other taxes and changes to support people, particularly at risk of fuel poverty but we needed to go beyond that and we may have to go further – we will have to watch and see how this crisis evolves.
“This isn’t a normal situation. This is unprecedented and I think it is appropriate.
“The European Commission and just about every country in Europe has agreed we do need to make a response because it is exceptional circumstances.
“We do expect prices to come down. Exactly how much we won’t know and it does depend on what happens in the Ukraine and elsewhere.”
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