Irish Government launches £5.2m fund for the design, building and management of energy efficient buildings

The Irish Government has launched a fund of up to €6 million (£5.2m) for the design, construction and management of energy efficient buildings, a recent news report in the local media has been able to suggest.

The public and private sector applicants will currently be in the design phase of planning capital projects for new or existing buildings.

Participants must follow the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland’s (SEAI) Excellence in Energy Efficient Design (SEED) standard and embed energy-saving measures in the design of their projects.

The grant, worth up to €500,000 (£429,575) per project, does not support single retrofit projects but rather full asset energy performance.

Richard Burton, Communications, Climate Action and Environment Minister said: “Recognising increased potential and growing appetite for investment in this area, we have provided €6m in funding for this programme this year – almost about double the value of the demand in last year’s scheme.

“A huge range of bodies ranging from local GAA clubs to Data Centres and from hospitals to agribusiness have made savings of over 30% in their energy costs through the scheme. The certification it yields is a great selling point for climate aware leaders.”

HeatingSave – the low-cost BMS that offers in-depth analysis tools for your building

Building management systems (or BMS systems) monitor and control building operations, such as heating and hot water provision, air-conditioning, electrical power, fire alarms and fire suppression, lighting, ventilation and even security (access control, video surveillance, etc.). These systems are increasingly connected to other information systems and the internet.
Quite obviously, in order to be able to deliver such a high level of control, BMS systems employ an array of sensors, each of them transmitting sensitive data to the main controller. Ensuring the data remains private and secure at all times is paramount f or the security of the buildings and residents.

The HeatingSave building management system features multiple sensors – temperature, flow and return temperature, PIRs, LUX, air quality, etc. – all contributing to the achievement of the ultimate goal – that of helping you drive down energy costs, while keeping your building comfortable and secure.
HeatingSave collects and stores meter readings each minute so that you have the granularity to be able to see the cause and effect. The same applies to other inputs such as temperatures, air quality and occupancy.

The starting point for the normalisation of most energy consumption related to heating is degree-day analysis. Since the outside temperature can vary significantly for site to site within a local geographical area, HeatingSave calculates the degree-days for each day for each site.

However, unlike some other competitors, data generated by HeatingSave is stored on the system itself – users can access it any given time. We don’t have access to the data (unless granted by the users when carrying out system diagnostics), and the data is most certainly not shared with any third party. Furthermore, HeatingSave has top-level security protocols in place, meaning that even when you’re controlling your system remotely (for example, via the smart phone app), the security and privacy of your data are guaranteed.