ESB Customer Supply sponsors Sustainability Conference

ESB Customer Supply recently sponsored a one day conference 'Housing in a changing climate', which was hosted by Energy Action. Dunboyne Castle played host to the event which was officially opened by Michael Finneran, Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government with special responsibility for Housing, Urban Renewal and Developing Areas.

During his address the Minister said, "The EU Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings, which was transposed into Irish law in 2006, introduced a requirement for a Building Energy Rating System, or BER. The importance of the BER certification system for the Governments overall energy efficiency goals cannot be understated". Thus this Conference was extremely relevant.

Pat Fenlon, General Manager, ESB Customer Supply also addressed the 120 delegates, reinforcing this idea and stressing that ESB Customer Supply is committed to promoting energy efficiency.

Those presenting during the day included Kevin O'Rourke, Built Environment Manager, Sustainable Energy Ireland, Patrick Daly, Director BESRaC, Energy and Environmental Building Consultant, Jay Stuart, DWEcoCo Ltd., Integrated Sustainable Design Consultants, Michael Hanratty, IHER Energy Services, Bill Sheldrick, Alembic Research Ltd., Glasgow County councillors and property developers from around the country also attended.

From January 1st, 2009 Energy Rating labels will be required for all dwelling sales or rentals as per the European Performance of Buildings Directive.

As such, some of the areas up for discussion included:

• The new 2008 Building Regulations and future challenges.
• Designing and building beyond the current Building Regulations.
• Providing Building Energy Rating (BER) Certificates. (This includes the Implication of Strategy for Developing Sustainable Communities and putting policy into practice.)
• Intelligent Energy Europe DATAMINE project. (This includes items such as Lessons for Local Authorities and owners of larger housing stocks for storing and analysing Building Energy Rating data, Geomapping and Irish datasets.)