The County Museum in Dundalk is one of nine buildings being upgraded
Homeowners and businesses are set to benefit from a cross-border project where local authorities will demonstrate best practice for reducing energy costs.
The cross-border initiative, the Energy Efficiency and Micro-Generation Project, funded through the European Union’s INTERRREG IVA programme commenced in the East Border Region in 2011. Ten local authorities, seven in Northern Ireland and three in Republic of Ireland, selected five of their most energy hungry buildings, fifty buildings in total, to undergo detailed energy audits. As a result of the energy audits, 9 buildings were selected to undergo upgrades to building fabric and building services to reduce the energy consumption.
In the County Museum in Roden Place – one of the 9 buildings selected for energy upgrades works – the upgrade of all gallery and exhibition space lighting to energy efficient LED technology, coupled with the installation of motion detection on each floor, will significantly reduce electricity consumption on site. This lighting upgrade will also be complimented by the installation of a large array of photovoltaic solar panels on the south facing roof, which when weather conditions allow will provide on-site green electricity generation which will meet the majority of the reduced lighting load.
Another feature of the building upgrades will be a visitor experience display screen in the building foyer which, through collaboration with project partners Dundalk Institute of Technology, will provide monitoring of the building’s energy meters allowing visitors to see a ‘live’ display of the building’s energy performance, comparing live data with historical energy consumption and carbon emissions data.
Bryan Crowe, the Energy & Sustainability Project officer, is enthusiastic about the potential of the energy upgrades.
“I am delighted to be involved with this exciting project and welcome the opportunity to demonstrate the energy saving potential of energy efficiency and micro-generation measures to a wide audience through the creation of visitor friendly exemplar buildings within the East Border Region,” he said.
It is expected that the project works will showcase best practice and the renewable technologies most suited to the local climate to local SME’s and homeowners alike.
The Cathaoirleach of Dundalk Town Council, Councillor Eamonn O’Boyle, welcomes this new innovative project, and hopes that it will lead to a much improved efficiency in energy consumption in our County Museum and wishes to acknowledge the funding received from the INTERRREG IVA programme for this new important Cross Border initiative.
Additional information can be found at www.sustainandbuild.com, or follow project progress, with regular updates on twitter @sustainandbuild.
The building upgrades across all 9 sites have commenced with works to be complete by the end of March 2014.
Talk of the Town 