7.2.1
Overview
In 2012, CASALA set up the SEED project to leverage the learnings, networks and re- lationships from previous local projects and apply them to energy related ventures. In September of the same year, SEED was awarded a ‘Better Energy Communities’ pilot project by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI)1. The ‘Better Energy’
programme is Ireland’s national upgrade initiative to retrofit building stock and facil- ities to high standards of energy efficiency, thereby reducing fossil fuel use, running costs and greenhouse gas emissions. The purpose of these projects is to support and pilot innovative approaches to achieving high quality and efficient delivery of improve- ments in energy efficiency within Irish communities (Howley et al., 2012) (KEMA, 2008) (McAuley and Polaski, 2011). For this pilot, SEED (in conjunction with com- munity partners) was required to fully implement energy saving changes and install
monitoring equipment in a range of residential and public buildings across the local community. The pilot was fully implemented by December 2012, providing live en- ergy data readings from all community participants directly to CASALA’s data acqui- sition system at DkIT.
7.2.2
Related Work
Energy security has been an important research topic for many years, with reports from agencies such as the SEAI highlighting increasingly stringent energy related goals. In order to ensure energy security for the future, it is important to understand how energy can be generated and used as efficiently as possible. In the book ‘Energy Efficiency: Towards the End of Demand Growth’ (Kesting and Bliek, 2013), Stephanie Kesting and Fritz Bliek describe a smart energy pilot project in the Netherlands where dy- namic real-time pricing is employed to optimize the energy system in a decentralised way. End users are both producers and consumers of energy in a market system that allows them to either use energy themselves when needed or sell excess energy to their neighbours in a system known as a smart grid community. In a key paper on energy consumption (Darby, 2006), Sarah Darby demonstrates how clear feedback educates energy users to be more efficient over a long period of time and how direct feedback in combination with frequent, accurate billing can provide sustained energy reductions. In the paper ‘Real-Time Recognition and Profiling of Appliances through a Single Electricity Sensor’ (Ruzzelli et al., 2010), Ruzzelli et al. present a single sensor system that can recognise multiple electrical appliances in real-time. It demonstrates the huge potential for easy-to-use, low-cost sensors & systems that can provide important feed- back on energy usage and help promote energy awareness and generate efficiencies. Another article on energy efficiency in Sweden (Henryson et al., 2000) also argues that feedback, while important, does not guarantee efficiencies in of itself and that it is paramount to continue to educate and inform users about their energy usage as well as look at their motivations to change. Important research studies such as these are helping to inform decisions on projects such as SEED and help guide its development into the future.
7.2.3
Project Details
As part of the ‘Better Energy Communities’ pilot, SEED committed to delivering sig- nificant energy efficiency upgrade works, increased renewable energy generation and implementation of an integrated energy data collection platform across a group of ten
Figure 7.1: Projected Annual Savings Source: (Flynn et al., 2013)
homes, a community house, a secondary school as well as a third level college. The actual locations are as follows:
Residential Community
• Muirhevna M´or, 10 homes in conjunction with Dundalk Town Council and Elec- tric Ireland
• Croabh Rua, Community House, Muirhevna M´or in conjunction with Youth Work Ireland
Public Buildings
• O’Fiaich Secondary School in conjunction with Louth VEC and the Department of Education
• Carrolls Building, DkIT
The specific deliverables defined within the project required an investment of €808,270 by the partners to achieve an overall energy target of 16% in energy efficiency, and de- liver savings of 1,600,129 kWh and 317,815 kgCO2 per annum (see Figure 7.1). The payback period has been calculated at 7.25 years, with a positive Net Present Value (NPV) of €707,704 into perpetuity at a discount of 4%. A result which, if met, rep- resents excellent value for money for the level and scale of works undertaken. On project initiation, Building Energy Rating (BER) assessors were appointed to estab- lish the baseline energy ratings and this was repeated on completion to establish the reduction in BERs for all project buildings.
In order to confirm if the 16% energy savings target is being met, accurate measure- ments are crucial to the verification of such savings. This is achieved by monitoring
energy usage through the use of smart metering2and the measurable improvement in
BER ratings for the domestic and non-domestic buildings involved in the projects. The overall benefits are multi-faceted and include empowering the local community in terms of managing energy efficiency and cost effectiveness; the educational and re- search & development community in terms of applied research and Living Lab learn- ings; the local and regional economy in terms of increased access to research & de- velopment funding (and related job creation) as well as contributing to a model of leadership for future energy related projects.