Medium Business Case Study – Wexford Enterprise Centre

Subject Areas:

Lighting, PV Panels, Double Glazing, Grant Aid

Sector:

Business Services

Background

Wexford Enterprise Centre actively fosters an entrepreneurial spirit, through the provision of support, advice and affordable workspace to a broad range of companies. This 45,000 sq ft facility comprises of 50 office, industrial and manufacturing units and is home to 30 companies, employing over 100 staff.
Since joining EcoMerit, they have embarked on a major programme to reduce energy use, save on costs and improve their long term sustainability.

Lighting

Lighting in the public areas was predominantly by a mix of fluorescent tubes and halogen spotlights. These relatively inefficient lights needed to be operating 24/7 because the centre has to be open to its tenant businesses at all times. The total lighting load was 10.9 kW costing €13,900 per year to run.
The solution was to replace all these lights with modern energy-efficient LED units which are typically 80% more efficient.
In addition, the installation was carefully optimised, area by area, to tailor the lighting performance and deliver further energy savings.
The net result is an impressive 93% reduction in lighting energy use.
The LED technology was supplied by Ecopoint (www.ecopoint.ie) and installation and optimisation was by Dirr Electrics (dirrelectrics@oceanfree.net)

Solar Panels

The Enterprise Centre has installed an array of roof-mounted solar panels. These photo-voltaic panels are used to generate electricity and reduce the centre’s requirement for grid electricity.
The array was supplied and installed by Solar Electric Ireland (www.solarelectric.ie). It is expected to generate between 5,000 and 6,000 kWh of useful electricity per year.
This means that the panels will be capable of supplying at least 90% of the new LED lighting load for the public areas. As a result, the annual lighting costs will reduce from €13,900 to no more than €200. An overall reduction of 98.5%!

Double Glazing

The opportunity was taken to replace thirteen of the centre’s remaining single glazed windows with double glazed units. These are expected to save €1,850 per year in heating costs.
The windows were supplied and installed by D&B Windows (www.dbwindows.ie).

Grant Aid

To help fund the project, the Enterprise Centre used its EcoMerit certification to apply for SEAI ‘Better Energy Communities’ grant support.

SEAI provided 50% grant support, reducing the overall project cost from €55,760 to €27,880. As a result, the overall payback time on the project will be a little under two years.

Annual carbon savings will be 49.75 tonnes.