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.