Ambitious Irish plan aims to retrofit 1 million buildings for better energy performance

Building retrofit plan aims to save 8,000 GWh of energy in Ireland between now and 2020

An Irish program launched this week aims to give one million residential, public and commercial buildings energy upgrades by 2020 under the latest national retrofit strategy.

The plan aims to deliver 8,000 GWh of energy savings between 2011 and 2020. Half of the energy reduction targets are to be achieved by energy suppliers and the other half by energy service providers such as installers, who will be able to offer discounts on their products and services. Suppliers are expected to achieve energy reductions though a variety of means, including more efficient energy generation and undertaking home energy upgrades. All financial support will be contingent on measures achieving published energy savings.

Three quarters of all funding under the program will go to the residential sector, with 40 per cent of this directed towards fighting energy poverty. The remaining quarter will be focused on the public sector, and the program will aim to retrofit 1,000 public buildings by 2020.

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Irleand (SEAI) will handle all applications for funding, and will establish an energy efficiency fund to be utilised for energy upgrade investments.

Reacting to the launch, SEAI CEO Prof J Owen Lewis told Construct Ireland: "There is a really big opportunity here for the construction industry, but it also presents some challenges. We would be hoping to see some fresh thinking about ways of scaling up to address the challenge, and putting really considerable emphasis into performance and delivery so that the public has the right to expect really high performance delivery."

The Irish energy minister Eamon Ryan has set an initial target of 2,000 GWh savings for 2013. Energy suppliers can enter into a voluntary agreement with SEAI that will commit them to achieving a specific energy reduction target. If a supplier doesn't enter into such an agreement or fails to meet their target, the minister for energy may oblige it to achieve certain savings.