Good practice:

Sustainable Energy Community (S.E.C.)

Louth has a high concentration of energy and renewable energy companies and organisations researching and manufacturing energy products. The Centre for Renewables and Energy at Dundalk Institute of Technology-CREDIT is one example. Recognising this expertise and the need to address our national energy challenges, a community group in the county decided to take a number of actions to reduce domestic energy use, using more renewable energy and becoming leaders by educating other communities on how to do the same.
The community of Dunleer in County Louth established the Sustainable Energy Community (SEC) to provide leadership to communities on addressing the challenges of climate change by reducing energy use and using more renewable energy. They have achieved this through a programme of equipping 230 homes across Louth with measures to reduce energy use and save money, resulting in the drawdown of €2.5 million in grant funding and creating one job for the project management of these programmes.
The programme is not exclusively for seniors, but about 60% of the clients of the programme would be those in fuel poverty and 80% of our clients would be over the age of sixty.

Strong community group, Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland grants, Town and Village grants from Local government, Local Government Community Development Support and Engagement with Public Participation Network, Leverage of local homeowners own match funding, Academic partners and expertise

- 230 homes retrofitted
- Draw down of €2.5m in SEAI grants
- Energy Ambassadors Education Programme developed and delivered in 7 counties in Ireland
- 1 full time job created work procured from 5 different local companies for housing retrofits
- Twinning with Alheim in Germany where Alheim can learn from Louth’s bottom-up approach and Louth can learn from Alheim’s sustainable energy generation delivery

- Building the trust of homeowners
- Managing the coordination of teams
- Tight timelines for works in people’s homes
- Cash flow to pay staff
- Building trust with SEAI
- Partnerships
- Managing the pieces of paperwork required
- People need to be educated on what behaviour changes they can

The learning from the Dunleer Sustainable Energy Programme can be transferred because:
a) The need to address climate change action is universal.
b) The Energy Ambassadors Programme has already been scaled up to other 7 other counties in Ireland.
c) The Better Energy Programme has already been scaled up to community buildings and high street businesses.

The Energy Ambassadors Education Programme https://youtu.be/beDeNIE6kW0 has potential to be translated into any language as it is relevant to every homeowner.
SEAI recognises the impacts the Dunleer Sustainable Energy Committee and the Dunleer project has delivered.
Louth County Council recognises the impacts that the Dunleer Sustainable Energy Committee and the Dunleer project has delivered.