At the launch of the Energy Smart Community at this year’s Energy Show, sustainable energy agency Codema said homeowners have the potential to achieve massive savings by carrying out standard energy improvements. Figures from its ‘Action Plan on Energy for Dublin’ showed that between 2008 and 2020, potential savings of over €1 billion can be achieved by homes in the Dublin city region alone. This includes savings of over €450 million by properly insulating walls and attics, more than €400 million on boiler upgrades, €70 million on replacing windows, €88 million on low energy lighting and over €100 million on renewable energy. The figures also showed that further savings of over €600 million can be reached by homeowners making simple changes to user behaviour, such as switching off lights and appliances when not in use. These energy-efficient measures would also have the potential to drastically reduce the city’s carbon emissions by over eight million tonnes in the same period. However, in order to reap the full benefits of these savings, Codema says homeowners need to avail of government energy-saving grants and join an energy ‘cluster’ such as the Energy Smart Community. The Energy Smart Community gives local communities the opportunity to improve the energy-efficiency of their homes, while availing of the Home Energy Saving and Greener Homes schemes. The Energy Smart Community works on the basic idea that by bringing homeowners together as a cluster, they can save on their overall energy bills. Speaking at the Energy Show at the RDS, Gavin Harte - Codema’s partner in the Energy Smart Community initiative -said: “Each member who joins the cluster will strengthen the collective buying power of their community, while saving money and making their home more comfortable to live in.” |
