MONAGHAN CO COUNCIL CONTRIBUTES TO SIGNIFICANT PUBLIC SECTOR SAVING ON ENERGY USE

Monaghan Co Council was cited this week as being a significant contributor to the €1.8 billion in energy use savings achieved by the Irish public sector since 2009. The annual report on Public Sector Energy Efficiency Performance showed that public bodies and Government Departments were 34% more energy efficient now than in 2009, exceeding the target set for 2020 by 33%. Monaghan Co Council was singled out for mention in the report as being the first Irish local authority to complete the retrofit of all its public lighting. The report stated: “The LED upgrade project was funded through the council’s own resources and some TII funding for national routes with a payback period of 7 years through reduced energy and maintenance costs. “In 2020, Monaghan Co Council retrofitted the final 1,700 public streetlights with high-efficiency LEDs, reducing the average billable wattage from 135W to 47W (65% reduction).

“A total of 5,800 public streetlights were upgraded over the 4-year lifetime of this project which resulted in energy savings of 1.82GWh (equivalent to €270,000) and over 530,000kg of CO2 emissions have been offset. As well as saving energy and reducing CO2 emissions, there are additional environmental and safety…