SECURE project partner Donegal County Council (Ireland) organised yesterday a stakeholder meeting in the Public Services Centre in the town of Letterkenny. Local experts in energy management and efficiency like Gallen Insulation, North West Forest Service, Pramerica and REIL took part. Project partners from Derry City & Strabane District Council and ERNACT also attended the information day.
Paddy Mullen, Facilities Manager at Donegal County Council, highlighted the results from the community surveys that project partners from Ecology Action Centre (Nova Scotia, Canada) have leaded some months ago on behalf of SECURE. In that way, attendants could learn more about the opinion and the way that Donegal citizens perceive energy efficiency measures. They also discussed about motivators for driving energy improvement, achieve smarter energy communities and, therefore, how to change the behavior of people by raising awareness.
The SECURE partner from Donegal County Council mentioned the share of knowledge occurred during SECURE's latest seminar in Sweden, 'Transnational Good Practices Knowledge Transfer'. Stakeholders could find out more about the speakers that took part and the topics discussed.
Furthermore, Paddy Sweeney from REIL presented the Grant application 2018 in relation to a perspective Better Energy Communities (BEC), a government grant scheme run yearly since 2012 and managed by Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. The objective of BEC is to fund energy efficiency projects at different levels of grant. According to Sweeney, a grant aid of between 30% and 80% can be realised for these kind of projects. The following type of buildings can be included in the application to get audited: residential properties, local authority housing, charities, private fuel poor housing community buildings,
sports clubs, multi denominational religious buildings, hostels, schools or town halls, among others.
Next SECURE Study visit
Project partner Leo Strawbridge Energy Manager at Derry City & Strabane District Council shared information about the study visit that he is organising to various sites in Derry (Northern Ireland) on November. The purpose of this event is to view a number of exciting energy efficient local projects. Stakeholders from Donegal are welcome to attend too.