Dublin district to lead the world on energy efficiency
Passive House Plus analyses Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council's plan to make the passive house standard mandatory for all new buildings in the district.
Passive House Plus analyses Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council's plan to make the passive house standard mandatory for all new buildings in the district.
Dublin’s old city wall in Woodquay provided the backdrop on Wednesday 15 October to a conference, titled 'Better Than Best Practice', on the urgent need to upskill the Irish construction industry.
The majority of homes in Dublin city have a Building Energy Rating (BER) of D1 or lower, according to figures released by Dublin’s energy agency Codema.
The supply of housing could double within two years if the government were to follow seven simple steps, according to the Construction Industry Federation. The CIF has suggested that these measures could see 20,000 housing units built a year by 2016, curtailing the excessive prices rises in the Dublin housing market.
The Passive House Institute is set to launch details of Passive House Plus and Passive House Premium - two new categories of building certification designed to add microgeneration of energy into the world's leading low energy standard.
SEAI last week announced that Better Energy Homes, its home energy upgrade grant programme, would continue through 2014.
Pressure from sectors of the building materials industry last November forced a delay in the publication of a database detailing the carbon footprint of building materials in Ireland, Passive House Plus can reveal.
Velux has warned that if the British government's 'green deal' fails to win the confidence of consumers it could be a "kick in the teeth" for the energy efficiency retrofit market. The green deal will allow homeowners to pay for energy upgrades via loans paid back through their energy bills.
Dr Brian Motherway has been appointed chief executive officer of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI). Motherway joined SEAI in 2006 and has recently held the role of chief operations officer. He holds bachelor and master's degrees in chemical engineering and a PhD in Sociology.
The government has launched a public consultation on its proposed new building control regulations. Environment minister Phil Hogan announced the new rules last year following the high profile failure of the Priory Hall development in Dublin to meet fire regulations, but details have just been released.
Environmental groups have criticised the EU's new Energy Efficiency Directive for failing to mandate member states to make big energy savings over the next decade.
According to the European Commission, the plan will deliver 20% energy savings across the union by 2020. However, Friends of the Earth said the directive would "not make savings to the extent promised, or on the scale needed to fight climate change".
Eamon Ryan newly elected as leader of the Green Party this afternoo with 71.6% of the vote. More to follow...
The government is withdrawing grant support for heat pumps and biomass boilers and reducing grants for other energy efficiency upgrades as part of its new Better Energy national building upgrade programme. The government has allocated an additional €30m to the programme this year in addition to the €60m set aside in this year's budget. It expects the extra funding to support an additional 2,000 jobs in the retrofit sector in 2011.