Solar energy panels to be installed at four Dublin libraries

Dublin City Council is to install solar energy panels on four of its public libraries and the civic offices.

The plan is part of a project which may see a range of public buildings and urban spaces being fitted out with solar photovoltaic panels.

Coolock, Ballymun, Cabra and Raheny libraries have been selected for the installation of the panels which generate electricity from sunlight, after a new report found the city council’s “assets” had good potential to harvest solar energy.

The report was carried out by a team from IBM which included Dublin in its Smarter Cities Challenge – a worldwide programme which assessed the potential for renewable energies in 16 cities.

Dublin’s selection as one of 16 cities meant it benefited from almost €450,000 worth of consultancy, and a report on the prospects for using renewable energies.

Based on its findings, the team made six recommendations for Dublin. They included the city council assessing each of its 430 municipal buildings to determine if roof-mounted installations could offset the building’s base electricity load.

The report also found the council should expand from municipal buildings to provide power for housing complexes, leisure centres and parks. It also recommended Dublin City Council should push the Government for a renewable energy tariff, essentially a grant from Government for each unit of renewable energy distributed on the national grid.

The report also recommended smarter buildings and micro-generation should be included as objectives of the city development plan, and build community awareness of solar power.

The panels to be installed on the libraries are expected to produce about 20 percent of the energy at each library and save Dublin City Council about €21,000 in energy bills each year. The panels typically pay for themselves in seven to 13 years.

The €250,000 cost to the city of the new panels is part-funded by the EU Ace Interreg IVB project, which aims to promote the benefits of renewable energy in communities.

Owen Keegan Dublin City Council’s Chief Executive said the city “wanted to explore if solar could help us meet our energy needs more economically and efficiently”.