Somewhere between €340 million and €1.9 billion will be raised by a new energy windfall tax.
Cabinet has agreed a cap on the amount energy providers can earn, of €120 per megawatt hour for renewables and €180 for coal and oil.
A solidarity tax will also be charged on excess profits of companies who generate fossil fuels.
Energy Minister Eamon Ryan says he's not sure how much money the moves will raise:
"Expect the revenues and again this is very difficult to know. They're lower than we might have expected number of months ago because the prices, as I said fallen quite significantly since then, even if it is still at a very high level, but it's in the range of 340 million up to 1.9 billion. But that's a very wide range, but there for a reason because of the uncertainty around what the prices might be."