Sustainable Energy Community – Charleville Tidy Towns

Charleville Tidy Towns proposes Sustainable Energy Community [SEC]

At a recent public meeting, a new three year plan of actions for 2018-2020 was presented where plans to explore the feasibility of establishing a new Sustainable Energy Community was announced as a key element of its new strategic plan.
A Sustainable Energy Community [SEC] is an active community in which everyone works together to develop a sustainable energy system. The aim as a first step is to be as energy efficient as possible and to use renewable energy where feasible.
An SEC can include all of the different energy user groups in the community including homes, elderly care & special needs, businesses, services, community centers, sports clubs & churches.

Energy Harvesting Workshop

Project Motivation

Home Energy Efficiency

There are many practical benefits in this SEC cooperative approach such as to:

Achieve significant financial and energy savings in your home or business.
Improve public health and well being with enhanced comfort via energy efficient buildings, homes, offices and public community centres.
Boost local employment with home improvement or building renovations.
Build community capacity to leverage funding & SEAI energy incentives.
Contribute to our regional and national energy reduction targets

Perhaps the greatest benefit is the opportunity for all community groups to get involved and share knowledge, insights and mistakes made, to meet & exchange experience with other members of the community who may be planning or have carried out energy efficiency projects.

Active participation by the community in the SEC is essential to enable Charleville Tidy Towns:

To identify the key priority action focus areas of energy use across the community with scope for greatest energy efficiency improvements.
To mobilize local technical supports, expertise and access mentors within SEAI to guide our community through an approved process to identify best projects for submission to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI.
To establish a panel of volunteers to advise community groups on best practices for energy efficiency projects and to access an extensive range of SEAI grant funding supports available for community energy initiatives.

Charleville Tidy Towns will be hosting additional public community briefings over the coming months and welcome all community expressions of interest for involvement in the SEC and will focus its feasibility scoping study on areas of highest community involvement.

If you would like to participate in or share you energy expertise or input into a specific focus area of the SEC as listed above please contact Charleville Tidy Towns , in confidence, on community@charlevilletidytowns.ie

We forward to hearing from you and will keep you posted of all SEC briefing events and the formation of all SEC specific interest groups.