Green energy pilot for Cavan Town

Cavan County Council is to pilot a new scheme using surplus renewable energy to tackle energy poverty.

The project will be conducted in partnership with EnergyCloud Ireland, a not-for-profit company focused on redirecting the wasted 1,448 GWh of renewable energy (retail value €300m plus) within the national grid and redistributing it to needy households.

Details were shared with local councillors at their June monthly meeting by Director of Services Paddy Connaughton, who afterwards explained to the Celt that the pilot will initially focus on social housing in Cavan Town before being rolled out elsewhere around the county.

Local homes selected will be equipped with EnergyCloud smart devices that divert otherwise wasted renewable electricity to heat domestic water tanks. Not only will the pilot help families reduce energy costs, it will also cut fossil fuel reliance, and further support the council's own housing retrofitting goals.

In 2023 Fingal County Council became the first local authority in Ireland to partner with EnergyCloud and the initiative has since spread further.

“It's a win-win,” assesses Mr Connaughton confidently, adding that the local authority is still working out the “finer details”, which include the number of houses set to benefit in the initial pilot phase.

The director told elected members at their June meeting that the scheme complements Cavan County Council’s broader climate and energy efficiency objectives.

EnergyCloud Ireland was established solely to make use of surplus renewable energy and is fully aligned with Ireland's Climate Action Plan to deliver 80% of electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

“It should lead to savings of between €200 and €500 per year. It costs about €500 or €600 to install the equipment, but they're giving us the equipment for free on a pilot basis. These will be going into local authority social housing in the Cavan Town area. This is all retrofit. We have to sit down and agree how many houses we can fit out under the pilot scheme and take it from there, to other housing and even public buildings,” Mr Connaughton told the Celt.

At the June council meeting, Fianna Fáil's John Paul Feeley tabled a motion calling on renewable energy companies to make curtailed or wasted renewable energy available to support households experiencing energy poverty or for community use. He also called on the local authority to amend the County Development Plan to make compliance with this objective a condition of any future planning permissions granted.

Latest figures for curtailed energy, Cllr Feeley suggests, are enough to heat the tanks of more than two million homes.

His motion was supported by Fine Gael’s Winston Bennett, who said Ireland has lost a significant amount of generated energy due to challenges with grid capacity.

“We’ve got to be smarter about this,” he said.

There was widespread support for the motion.