Energy Management Group Announce €7.5million of Energy Savings

May 07, 2010

Trinity College Dublin, and other members of the energy programme e3 which includes UCD, DIT and DCU, announced cumulative energy savings of €2million in the past 12 months and a total of €7.5 million after 6 years following their annual e3 energy review recently.  Along with monetary savings, the energy reduction also means that CO2 greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced by 20,000 tonnes since 2004, the equivalent to taking 7,100 cars off the road for one year.

Kieron McGovern, Engineering Services Manager at TCD, commented on how TCD is planning on sustaining these savings in the long term stating that the College’s aim to achieve a 10% saving in additional buildings over the coming years: “With energy use in the larger buildings down almost 10%, simply keeping it there is a challenge.  However in today’s economic environment where we are faced with a public sector energy efficiency target of 33% reduction in energy use by 2020 it is imperative that we continue to pull together and push forward to reach our goals.”

The energy initiative, called e3 for ‘Energy, Environment and Economy’, is part funded by Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI) and is run by the buildings offices in the four higher education institutions above.  The programme involves analysing energy consumption, and identifying opportunities for savings and implementing change.  A new interactive energy saving website, www.e3.ie, was launched in 2009 which allows building users access real-time energy performance details of the participating buildings.