 |
An Irish countryside community is aiming to create
the world’s first rural zero carbon district under a
plan that would see it switch totally to green power,
transport and production within 10 years.
Some 650 households in and around Ballynagran, Co Wicklow,
are included in the ambitious project inspired by the
goal of completely eliminating emissions of carbon,
the so-called greenhouse gas responsible for climate
change.
|
They plan to start with simple measures like switching over
every single light fitting to energy saving bulbs and carrying
out energy audits on all homes, business premises and public
buildings to see how they can be better insulated.
However, by 2020, they hope to have windmills, biomass energy
production and solar panels supplying power, electric vehicles
on every driveway, rainfall harvesting to save on water, community
allotments and orchards for food production and possibly reopening
the long abandoned Glenealy railway station to take advantage
of the Dublin-Rosslare train.
Experiments with zero carbon communities are taking place
around the world, but only in new housing developments or
existing urban neighbourhoods where residents live in close
proximity and share utilities.
The Ballynagran Zero Twenty project takes in a circular area,
6km in diameter, with a mix of one-off houses, farms, a population
concentration in Glenealy village, as well as dispersed clusters
of new homes and older dwellings built long before energy
efficiency were buzzwords.
Pat King, a local resident and vice-chairman of the voluntary
committee behind the plan, said - "It will be particularly
challenging because of the rural nature of the area. Transport
will be a big issue and farming, too, because agriculture
is a big producer of methane [which also releases carbon].
"But it’s going to be very exciting. There are a lot of
different ideas out there and our plans will change over the
years as new innovations develop."
Ironically, the location for the project was decided by an
operation once viewed as an environmental hazard. All the
households are within a 3km radius of Ballynagran dump where
operators, Greenstar, pay an annual levy into an environmental
fund overseen by Wicklow County Council.
The committee have a €150,000 start-up grant from the fund
that will allow them appoint a full-time project manager in
the coming weeks and employ two workers to begin the energy
audits.
"We’ve also been pledged €30,000 in materials from three
local companies to retrofit part of the school in Glenealy
with insulation as a case study of the kind of improvements
that can be made."
The project also plans to use the home improvement grants
scheme run by SEAI and to tap into EU funds once it gets off
the ground.
|
