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Policy and Value: A Case Study of
Local Authority Energy Management
and Retrofit Investment Appraisal
Paul Price
Dissertation submitted for the award of
MSc. Sustainable Development
Dublin Institute of Technology
October 2012
Volume 1 of 2
ABSTRACT
Saving energy, reducing carbon emissions and cutting costs through improved
energy management and retrofit investment are significant national and local policy
aims, with the public sector being given an exemplar role. Is implementation of these
policies consistent with good practice in energy management and retrofit investment?
A survey of Dublin City Council (DCC) leisure centres indicated a lack of
essential building energy management metrics and reporting structures, compounded by
very poor data quality from energy suppliers. A document analysis, of a government
grant scheme application process, showed inconsistencies with accepted investment
appraisal criteria. In-depth interviews were then carried out with fourteen informed
respondents in Co. Dublin guided by an 'energy management matrix' (EMM) method of
qualitative assessment, as used by SEAI and the EPA. This research framework also
guided coding and commenting of the transcribed interview data, assisting in its
analysis and interpretation. The indicative results of this exploratory research were that
policy implementation is only weakly consistent with EMM-defined good practice.
Current policy targets appear to lack meaning due to poorly defined baselines,
poor data gathering, an absence of energy reporting and a lack of operational level,
results-driven programmes. A more dominant policy of cost cutting and capital
rationing appears to be undermining value – limiting cost-optimal and robust local
decision-making. Energy accounting was reported as being seriously impeded by poor
billing from energy suppliers. In contrast, but within DCC, the Dublin Fire Brigade
Green Plan, with core principles of behavioural change and carbon saving, has achieved
significant results by linking operational and management commitment with technical
and investment expertise. This research suggests it is a good-practice, robust alternative
model, sustaining local services whilst also saving carbon emissions, energy and money.
Declaration
I certify that this thesis which I now submit for examination for the award of an
MSc. in Sustainable Development is entirely my own work and has not been taken from
the work of others save and to the extent that such work has been cited and
acknowledged within the text of my work.
This thesis was prepared according to the regulations for postgraduate study by
research of the Dublin Institute of Technology and has not been submitted in whole or
in part for an award in any other Institute or University.
The work reported on in this thesis conforms to the principles and requirements of
the Institute's guidelines for ethics in research.
The Institute has permission to keep, to lend or to copy this thesis in whole or in
part, on condition that any such use of the material of the thesis be duly acknowledged.
Signature
______________________________ ______________
Candidate Date
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Alan Gilmer for his most valuable
guidance and encouragement during the year.
My family, friends and classmates were very helpful, providing support, advice
and comments, I am very grateful. Thanks to Jim Scheer for the much appreciated
suggestions and corrections. Thanks too, to Robert Wyse for the read-through
comments and the solve-the-world summits at the café.
Additionally, I would like to thank all of those who made themselves available for
interview. Particular thanks are due to the staff at Codema, the City of Dublin Energy
Management Agency, for their assistance with my many questions.
Any errors of reporting or interpretation that remain in this work are of course my
own and in no way reflect on the work or views of those who gave their assistance to
this research project.
Dedication
Above all, my thanks go to Lizzie McDonnell, energy management expert and
intrepid wild swimmer, for the unwavering encouragement, diligent editing and all
round effort that made this year of study possible and enjoyable.
i
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Policy and Governance Context 1
1.2 Research Context 2
1.3 Research Question 4
1.4 Research Framework Methodology, Aim and Objectives 4
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 5
2.1 Sustainability in Energy and Carbon Emissions Policy 5
2.2 Energy Management 6
2.2.1 Building Energy Management Capacity 6
2.2.2 Responsibility for Energy Management 8
2.2.3 Assessing Quality in Energy Management – The EMM 10
2.2.4 Energy Management Standards and Indicators 12
2.2.5 Energy Accounting: Linking Cost, Consumption and Carbon 12
2.2.6 Energy Performance Certification of Buildings 13
2.3 Energy Saving and Retrofit Investment Decision-making 14
2.3.1 Saving Energy: Energy Conservation and Energy Efficiency 14
2.3.2 Funding Energy Efficiency and Retrofit Measures 15
2.3.3 Cost optimal Retrofit and Lifecycle Costing 17
2.3.4 Building retrofit: Active versus Passive Measures, and Co-benefits 19
2.3.5 Investment Data Quality and Relevance in Appraisal 20
2.3.6 Investment Appraisal Methods and Considerations 21
2.3.7 Lifecycle Investment: Global Risks and Local Implications 23
2.4 Energy Policy and Local Authority Implementation 24
2.4.1 Energy and Carbon Emission Policies and Targets 24
2.4.2 National and Local Governance in Ireland 29
2.4.3 Dublin City Council Energy Usage 30
2.4.4 Funding Local Authority Retrofit 31
2.5 The DCC and DFB Green Plan 33
2.6 Literature Review Conclusion 34
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 35
3.1 Research Methodology Outline 35
ii
3.2 Research Strategy 35
3.3 Research Methods 36
3.3.1 Methodology for Leisure Centre Surveys 36
3.3.2 Methodology for Document Analysis 38
3.3.3 Methodology for In-depth Interviews 42
3.4 Limitations to the Research Strategy and Methods 48
CHAPTER 4 LEISURE CENTRE SURVEY 49
4.1 Observations and Findings: Leisure Centre Survey Report 49
4.2 Leisure Centre Area and Billing Data 52
4.3 Leisure Centre Energy Data Analysis 53
CHAPTER 5 DOCUMENT ANALYSIS 56
5.1 Findings: Analysis of Documents 56
5.1.1 Description of Application Form 56
5.1.2 Findings: Application Guide 58
5.2 Findings: Assess Proposal Data Quality and Relevance 60
5.3 Analysis: Comparing Appraisal Method Alternatives 61
CHAPTER 6 IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS 67
6.1 Interview Findings: Data Location and Citation Format 67
6.2 Interview Findings: By Coded EMM category 67
6.2.1 Energy Policy (EP) 67
6.2.2 Energy Management Structure (MS) 69
6.2.3 Implementation and Motivation (IM) 72
6.2.4 Investment and Cost Analysis (CA) 82
6.2.5 Monitoring and Targeting (MT) 93
6.2.6 Data Provided by Energy Suppliers (PD) 98
6.2.7 Outcomes from Past Policy Implementation (OC) 100
6.3 Codings: Counts and Average Attainment Levels 107
CHAPTER 7 DISCUSSION 108
7.1 Leisure Centre Surveys 108
7.1.1 Survey Observations Discussion 108
7.1.2 Data Analysis and DEC Ratings 109
7.1.3 Survey Conclusions 110
iii
7.1.4 Limitations of the Leisure Centre Survey 112
7.2 Document Analysis 112
7.2.1 Appropriate Investment Appraisal 112
7.2.2 Timescale, Data Accuracy and Relevance 113
7.2.3 Comparing Appraisal Methods 115
7.2.4 Limitations of the Document Analysis 116
7.3 In-Depth Interviews 117
7.3.1 Coding Analysis and Interview Limitations 117
7.3.2 Interview Discussion by EMM Category 118
8.1 Conclusions and Recommendations 134
8.1.1 Energy Policy 134
8.1.2 Management Structure 135
8.1.3 Implementation and Motivation 135
8.1.4 Cost Analysis and Investment 136
8.1.5 Monitoring and Targeting 137
8.1.6 Provider Data from Energy Suppliers 137
8.1.7 Outcomes 138
8.2 Recommendations for further research 139
REFERENCES 140
iv
VOLUME 2: APPENDICES
LIST OF APPENDICES
A. Interview Codings and Comments: Method, Sorting and Details
B. Interview Data, Comments and Codings
C. Green Plan: Kilbarrack Fire Station. Initial Results Summary
D. Leisure Centre Report: Cover and Conclusions
E. Spreadsheet Calculator Developed for Assessment and Presentation of Retrofit
Measures. Example for Lighting Retrofit of Ballymun Leisure Centre Car Park
F. Therm Model Views Assessing Fabric Thermal Performance:
Existing and Possible Retrofits of Coolock and Crumlin Swimming Pools
G. Better Energy Workplaces 2012: Document Analysis
H. Alternative SBEM Calculations for Crumlin Swimming Pool by Codema and
Temborias (2012)
I. Spreadsheet used in Comparison of Appraisals
J. Work in Progress Presentation: Methodology and Results
K. Dublin City Council Leisure Centres: Photographs
List of Events Attended to Support the Dissertation Research
v
LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1 The Energy Management Matrix 11
Table 2.2 Financial and Energy Accounting Attainment Levels 13
Table 2.3 DCC Energy Costs 2010 and 2011 30
Table 3.1 Appraisal Methods, Definitions and Acceptance 41
Table 4.1 Leisure Centre Energy Data, Measured Area and DEC Rating 52
Table 5.1 Collated Sub-Project Descriptions and Data. 58
Table 5.2 Data Used in Appraisal Comparisons. 62
Table 6.1 Attainment Levels for EMM categories and Governance levels 107
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1 Retrofit Decision-Making: Saving vs. Penalty for Doing Nothing 19
Figure 3.1 Interview Topics Derived from EMM categories. 45
Figure 3.2 Coding Frame for Interview Data Derived from Typical EMM 47
Figure 4.1 Total Energy Usage of DCC Leisure Centres 54
Figure 4.2 Energy Utilisation Index for DCC Leisure Centres 54
Figure 4.3 2010 and 2011 Total Energy Cost versus Energy Cost Index 55
Figure 5.1 Excerpt from BEW Application Showing Sub-Project 1 Details 57
Figure 5.2 Simple Payback in Years for the 16 Projects 62
Figure 5.3 Net Present Values for the 16 Projects 63
Figure 5.4 Profitability Indexes for the 16 Projects 63
Figure 5.5 Profitability Index versus Net Present Value for the 16 projects 64
Figure 5.6 Energy Cost after Retrofit Compared to Present Cost 64
Figure 5.7 Danish Appraisal Method Profitability Index 65
Figure 5.8 Comparison of Rankings by Different Appraisal Methods 66
vi
LIST OF ACRONYMS
BCR Benefit to Cost Ratio
BER Building Energy Rating, an asset based EPC.
BEW Better Energy Workplaces: A government-funded grant scheme
BMS Building Management System
CBA Cost Benefit Analysis
CHP Combined Heat and Power
CIBSE Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers
CO2 Carbon dioxide
CO2e Carbon dioxide equivalent
Codema City of Dublin Energy Management Agency
DCC Dublin City Council
DEC Display Energy Certificate, an operational EPC
DCF Discounted Cash Flow, accounting for the time value of money
DLRCC Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council
DCENR Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources
DECLG Department of Environment, Communities and Local Government
ECER Effective Cost of Energy after Retrofit
EMM Energy Management Matrix
EPBD Energy Performance of Buildings Directive 2002/91/EC
EPBD-R Recast Energy Performance of Buildings Directive 2010/31/EU
vii
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
EPC Energy Performance Certificate or Energy Performance Contract
ESCo Energy Saving Company
ESD Energy Services Directive
ETS Emissions Trading Scheme
EU European Union
kW kilowatt, measure of power being used
kWh kilowatt hour, measure of energy used
FCC Fingal County Council
GHG Greenhouse Gas
GPRN Gas Point Reference Number
GWh gigawatt hour
IPMVP International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol
LCA Life Cycle Analysis
LCC Life Cycle Costing
M&V Measurement and Verification
MPRN Meter Point Reference Number
MS Member State of the European Union
MWh megawatt hour
NEAP Non-domestic Energy Assessment Procedure
NEEAP National Energy Efficiency Action Plan
viii
NPV Net Present Value
O&M Operations and Maintenance
OPW Office of Public Works
pc personal communication
PE Primary Energy
PPP Public Private Partnership
PV Photovoltaic
SBEM Simplified Building Energy Model used for NEAP assessments
SDCC South Dublin County Council
SEAI Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland
SEAP Sustainable Energy Action Plan
NOTES
1. 'Carbon emissions': The predominant greenhouse gas (GHG) is carbon dioxide.
Often both CO2 and GHGs are described as 'carbon emissions'. Total amounts
of 'carbon emissions' or GHGs emitted are most commonly stated as carbon
dioxide equivalent (CO2e) to include all GHGs.
2. Carbon vs carbon dioxide: The mass of carbon emitted is related to, but not the
same as carbon dioxide emitted. 1 tC = 3.67 tCO2.
3. Power and energy are not the same. Energy use is the capacity to do work,
commonly measured in joules (a very small amount of energy), or in kWh,
MWh etc, for larger amounts. Power is the rate of energy being used at any one
instant in time as measured in W, kW, MW, GW etc.
1
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Policy and Governance Context
Until recently, for large energy users like the public sector, energy costs were
relatively minor compared to other overheads and there were few questions regarding
future availability or the environmental consequences of energy use (Russell, 2010:78).
These factors are now changing rapidly for all energy users, including the public sector
in Ireland that has an energy bill of approximately €500 million every year, of which
local authorities spend more than a fifth (SEAI, 2012d).
National policy, in line with EU directives, sets out clear headline targets: a
legally binding requirement to reduce total carbon emissions by 20% by 2020 relative to
1990 levels and a non-binding aim of decreasing energy use by 20% by 2020 (da Graça
Carvalho, 2012). The National Energy Efficiency Action Plan (NEEAP) stresses the
need for increased energy efficiency in buildings, through good energy management and
extensive retrofit, and directs the public sector to play an exemplar role with a target of
reducing its energy use by 33%. Both Dublin City and South Dublin County Council
have also signed the Covenant of Mayors in 2009 committing them to an overall
reduction of 20% in carbon emissions by 2020.
Over the past five years, energy costs have increased rapidly, there are now
multiple possible suppliers increasing complexity for purchasers, and many doubts are
expressed over the future certain continuity of supply as well as the potential for serious
price shocks ahead. Passing the point of global geologic peak oil production in 2006
(IEA, 2011b) is unlikely to reduce carbon emissions significantly (Verbruggen and Al
Marchohi, 2010), but does means that energy prices are likely to rise rapidly in the
2
medium term (Benes et al., 2012) though large fluctuations are likely, potentially
presenting serious economic problems (de Almeida and Silva, 2009).
The burning of fossil fuels for energy, thereby producing greenhouse gases
contributing to global warming (IPCC, 2007; Metz, 2010:27) has also become a major
concern for many citizens and governments.
Decisions regarding the energy management and retrofit investment of existing
public buildings and social housing are critical in affecting short, medium and long term
costs in money, energy and carbon emissions. Economic, social and environmental
sustainability and security must increasingly be seen in combination if effective policy
is to result in cost-effective and risk-robust decision-making. For all of these reasons,
addressing current and future energy usage in buildings, lighting and water services is
becoming increasingly important to local authorities. Following the financial crisis, the
increasing cost of energy, combined with budgetary constraints, may mean the
difference between maintaining and losing services. This is likely to mean balancing
short-term savings with well-directed investment, to ensure long-term value by making
resilient as well as cost-optimal decisions.
1.2 Research Context
This research examines government commitment to stated energy policy in the
public sector, and the progress being made in fulfilling its exemplary role, by
undertaking a qualitative assessment of energy management and retrofit investment
practices in Dublin local authorities, and those of national funding departments and
agencies as they affect the local authorities.
What are current energy management practices within local authorities and are
they consistent with minimising future operational costs in public buildings and
3
housing, as intended by energy and emissions reduction policies? The only published
research appears to be the 2011 CCMA Local Authority Energy Management Survey
(SEAI, 2011c), a basic questionnaire survey, and Energy Use in the Public Sector
(SEAI, 2012h), both published in Summer 2012, as this research was completed. The
2008 Climate Change Strategy for Dublin City (DCC/Codema, 2008) and the 2010
Dublin City Sustainable Energy Action Plan (DCC/Codema, 2010b) describe past
energy usage and emissions, proposed actions and targets, and future scenarios, but do
not describe existing practices and attitudes to energy management as they relate to
policy implementation. No detailed specific literature on Dublin or Irish local authority
energy management and retrofit planning was found in literature searches.
Literature on good practice for assessing large, private sector, energy users'
energy management performance is readily found (see Section 2.4 and 2.6). A common
method used in Europe and North America is the qualitative assessment based on an
energy management matrix (EMM) approach. A variant of this is EMM auditing used
by the Environmental Protection Agency for Integrated Pollution Prevention Control
energy efficiency auditing, also recommended by SEAI for use in the Large Industry
Energy Network (LIEN) programme (EPA, 2003; Wajer, 2005). As large local
authorities are significant energy users it was deemed appropriate to use this as a
framework in assessing current, local authority energy management practice. An EMM
was therefore the basic framework guiding the methodology and analysis for this
research.
4
1.3 Research Question
The question that this research seeks to address is:
Are national energy saving and carbon emissions reduction policies for the public
sector, and their implementation by local authorities in Dublin, consistent with good
practice in energy management and retrofit investment decision-making?
1.4 Research Framework Methodology, Aim and Objectives
This original, exploratory research made use of the existing, qualitative Energy
Management Matrix auditing technique as a guiding framework for the assessment of
current, local authority level energy management, particularly in regard to public
buildings and social housing.
Following a review of literature, detailing good practice in energy management
and retrofit investment, the research aim was to gather data that would qualitatively
gauge:
• how local authorities are undertaking energy management;
• how retrofit investment in local authority buildings and housing is appraised; and,
• how local authorities are being supported and directed by central government to
meet the energy and emissions targets of stated policies.
5
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Sustainability in Energy and Carbon Emissions Policy
The future of public goods, such as water supply, public lighting and buildings
(leisure centres, libraries and fire stations), and the easing of fuel poverty are reliant on
national and local government decisions prioritising long-term value in the face of
short-term pressures and longer term uncertainty (Lane, 2011; see also local
implications in, Trainer, 1999:52-58). These objectives echo the Our Common Future,
the 'Brundtland Report' of (UN-WCED, 1997), which identified maintaining
intergenerational equity in access to resources and progress toward the elimination of
poverty as key aims of sustainable development. The report also stated the need for
affluent societies and citizens to make choices toward reducing their demands on
ecological supports including energy, to avoid an "interlocking crisis" of economics,
society and the environment, particularly due to global warming, increasing world
population and the end of an era of cheap energy (Para. 27-30).
Today these risks are becoming more apparent, yet only weak policy changes
have been made (IEA, 2011b; IIASA, 2012) and the European and Irish economies
continue to depend on energy inputs from imported fossil fuels with large resultant
greenhouse gas emissions (IEA, 2008; SEAI, 2011b). In spite of the Kyoto agreement
and European emissions regulations, which only address domestic emissions,
effectively no progress had been made at all in reducing global climate emissions,
largely because of a lack of political will to reduce consumption, particularly from
OECD governments and voters (Helm, 2008). Towards a New National Climate Policy
(NESC, 2012), the National Climate Policy Review 2011 (DECLG, 2011:18) and the
Our Sustainable Future (DECLG, 2012b:27) indicate that maintaining the status-quo is
6
not an option. However, these documents generally fail to acknowledge the
increasingly inconvenient evidence of climate change (Anderson and Bows, 2010; New
et al., 2010; Huntingford et al., 2012) thereby degrading the quality and value of
national policy and long-term decision-making in Ireland.
Currently, energy and emissions are effectively only rationed by cost, even though
a sufficiency strategy of carbon budgeting (Alcott, 2008; Brand and Boardman, 2008)
may ultimately be the only effective way to limit total carbon emissions to avoid
dangerous climate change, though time is now running out rapidly (Anderson, 2011;
ICC, 2009).
2.2 Energy Management
Energy management is "the judicious and effective use of energy" requiring a
whole systems viewpoint to optimise and examine all current and planned energy usage
(Capehart et al., 2005:1).
2.2.1 Building Energy Management Capacity
The linkage of costly energy use and resultant carbon emissions with economic
wealth, societal health, energy security, and climate change, given the increasingly high
potential for future shocks, provides a strong impetus for considering future energy
usage carefully (ibid.:3-5). Energy costs rose dramatically in the 1970s and there was a
corresponding increase in energy management, but this fell away in the 1990s and early
2000s such that many organisations now lack capacity to make financially, or
technically, well-informed energy decisions (Fawkes, 2007:41).
With prices rising rapidly in recent years and, generally, likely to continue rising
(Fig 11, Benes et al., 2012), especially relative to public sector funding, energy users
such as local authorities have three possible responses: do nothing; carry out only cost
7
saving proposals; or respond with strategic energy management by aiming to minimise
overall energy cost and exposure to risk during the next decades (Fawkes, 2007:3). As
cost saving, resilience and policy demand, this requires organisational and societal
change to reinvest effort and funding into energy management (Beggs, 2009:3-4), and to
overcome ‘behavioural lock-in’ in energy consumption habits (Maréchal, 2010;
Jackson, 2005:133).
Montier (2009 Ch. 14;) details research indicating that value investors must have
long-term time horizons, but behavioural economics suggests that decision-makers
commonly suffer from serious loss aversion and a bias toward short-term rewards,
discouraging longer term investments that are most likely to produce long term value,
even if otherwise persuasive information is presented. These behaviours apply
particularly with respect to policy decision-making in the face of climate change
(McNall, 2010). In the UK, local authorities believe that the short-term budget cycles
required of them by central government inhibit long-term decision-making (Lorenzoni,
2000:181, cited by Urwin and Jordan, 2008:181) and yet public buildings are likely to
be required indefinitely, mandating long lifecycle criteria in judging retrofit or
replacement (Ruegg and Short, 2007:3.22).
Decision-making is often difficult because of future uncertainty (Hallegatte et al.,
2012:2-9), conflicting objectives, too many or too few proposed alternatives, and
unsupported biases (Eisenführ et al., 2010, Ch. 1). To diminish bias and increase value,
rational decision-making can be used giving a structured process to produce improved
outcomes by breaking down complex problems into component parts (ibid., Ch. 1). No
decision-making method or decision is objectively correct (Triantaphyllou, 1997), but
defining parameters for data quality, key objectives and stakeholder preferences at the
8
start of the process filters out short-term motivations that might otherwise overly effect
unstructured decision making (Eisenführ et al., 2010:2-4).
2.2.2 Responsibility for Energy Management
First and foremost, energy management is an issue that needs to be treated as a
management responsibility (Fawkes, 2007:33). Capehart et al. (2005:1) identify on-
going commitment from upper management in an organisation as the key ingredient in
successful implementation of an energy management program, an assessment agreed
with by Russell (2010:59-63). Any organisation that expects to make actual reductions
in energy waste needs to commit all managers to on-going, results-based organisational
change by setting energy goals and accountabilities (ibid.:52-54).
Frequently cited business research also concludes that successful change
programmes emphasise results, particularly from an on-going succession of short-term
measurable projects. Such programmes involve empirical testing to reveal what works
on-site, combined with frequent reinforcement and a strong management commitment
to monitoring and reporting results (Kaplan and Norton, 1992). In contrast, ‘activity-
based’ ‘quality programmes’ or ‘campaigns of programmatic change’ commonly fail
because they are not judged by verifiable results, they are too large scale and diffuse in
effects, or they are designed by staff specialists or external experts rather than
operating-level managers who can trial and test for results against accurate monitoring
(Schaffer and Thomson, 1992). Enduring organisational change most effectively
evolves at the periphery of organisations (not by ‘top-down’ direction), primarily by
changing behaviour and habits, rather than attitudes or ideas, and is best motivated by
new and clearly identified roles, responsibilities and relationships (Beer et al., 1990).
9
Poor energy policy treats energy management as a series of engineer-driven, fast
payback, capital investment projects, whereas good policy is a continuous management
process of communication involving all employees in deriving value from a mix of
continuous awareness and attention to detail, as with any other financial portfolio,
(Russell, 2010:85-87).
Capehart et al. (2005) describes six critical energy management objectives,
illustrating the need for managers and staff to take responsibility for energy saving.
Four of the key objectives critical to energy management are purely managerial skills
and remain the responsibility of all managers:
• Cultivate good communications on energy management;
• Develop and maintain coherent monitoring and reporting management protocols
to use energy wisely;
• Continuous behavioural improvement to increase returns from energy
investments;
• Develop an interest in and dedication to the energy management program from all
employees.
Two are more technical: the need to improve energy conservation and efficiency, and
reducing impacts of supply interruption (ibid., Ch. 1). Many lessons in good
communication to improve energy efficiency through past marketing efforts are clearly
described in a report by LBNL (2010).
Technical aspects of energy management do require expertise to inform facility
management and decision-making, but it is clear that the responsibility for energy
management lies with management, not with agencies or consultants (Fawkes, 2007:46-
55). To solve energy cost problems, a programme of sustained, ‘continuous energy
10
improvement’ is required, including both behavioural measures and capital projects,
planned so that early, easy stages guarantee savings that can are reinvested in longer
term but high net value investments (Russell, 2010:91).
2.2.3 Assessing Quality in Energy Management – The EMM
Fawkes (2007:42-63) sets out basic activities and enabling tools useful for every
type of organisation, public sector or private sector, large or small, to focus on the
objective of achieving maximum cost, energy and carbon savings. Similarly Russell
(2010) describes assessment of an organisation's energy performance using clearly
managerial categories and questions:
• Organisational Policy: How well does the organisation articulate its energy vision
and goals?
• Management Structure: Is there clear authority and accountability for energy-
related decisions?
• Implementation and motivation: Is energy policy integrated with standard
operating procedures?
• Investment analysis: Are the right criteria used to reach conclusions about energy
and money?
• Monitoring and targeting: Is there a way to measure and react to energy
performance? (ibid.:118)
Typically, these are the headings used in the EMM method, qualitatively
assessing the current performance level in each of these dimensions, often using a zero
up to 4-star scale (see Table 2.1). This tool is used to examine where an organisation is
now and to identify how it needs to progress its energy management abilities.
Widespread use of the EMM for assessment of organisations and industrial sites is
11
noted in references from North America (US-EPA, 2012), Britain (Fig. 3, Carbon Trust,
2011; Fawkes, 2007:56), as well as Ireland (EPA, 2003:16; Wajer, 2005).
Table 2.1 The Energy Management Matrix Collated from Table 5.3, pp.119-120, Russell, 2010
12
2.2.4 Energy Management Standards and Indicators
The new ISO 50001, replacing IS EN 16001, is a worldwide standard for energy
management in use that enables third-party auditing and quality registration of energy
management, establishing energy baselines and Energy Performance Indicators (NSAI,
2012). University College Cork has recently achieved this accreditation (UCC, 2012).
In Ireland, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEA) have developed Energy
MAP, a management action plan for small and medium energy users including local
authorities (SEAI, 2012f).
Quantitative performance indicators are required to enable organisations, local
authorities for example, to compare dispersed buildings of similar type (Moss, 2005,
Ch. 6). Moss notes the need for carbon dioxide emission benchmarks and indices
(CDIs). Capehart et al. (2005:26-29) identify critical performance indicators needed for
on-going analysis of energy use in buildings as total energy cost and consumption, as
well as cost divided by area (Energy Cost Index, ECI) and consumption divided by area
(Energy Utilisation Index, EUI).
2.2.5 Energy Accounting: Linking Cost, Consumption and Carbon
Linking energy costs, energy consumption and carbon emissions is a critical part
of energy monitoring, requiring accurate energy reporting to be coordinated with
financial accounting. Both sets of data can then be jointly subject to analysis thereby
informing policy and management decisions (ibid.:25). Progress toward coordinated
energy accounting can be described in qualitative attainment levels, see Table 2.2, that
complements and further adds to the EMM qualitative assessment of the Monitoring
and Targeting category (ibid., Ch.1). Energy accounting also supports the Investment
Analysis category.
13
Table 2.2 Financial and Energy Accounting Attainment Levels
From Capehart.:25)
Billing data is critical to energy accounting and for establishing baseline energy
use. Fawkes (2007:39-40) notes that in the UK billing by utility companies has been
“atrocious”, with a very low standard that would be unacceptable in any other industry,
and which may be a left over from “take it or leave it” billing from nationalised utilities.
2.2.6 Energy Performance Certification of Buildings
Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) for buildings have become an effective
reference basis for building energy use and improvements in Europe and worldwide
(Bull et al., 2012; Laustsen, 2008; Yan-ping et al., 2009). Buildings in their design,
fabric and technical equipment can perform at a theoretical level of energy performance,
an 'asset-based' rating. In Ireland, the asset-based EPCs are the Building Energy Rating
(BER) for dwellings and the NBER for non-domestic buildings. Qualified assessors
produce these by inputting a building’s details into modelling software thereby
calculating its energy performance (SEAI, 2012e).
However, a building and its technology are operated by people, often many
people, introducing a multitude of additional variables into the systems operation and
dramatically increasing potential risk of energy waste due to behaviour (Masoso and
Grobler, 2010). To give a building an 'operational' EPC, that will show how an a
occupied building is actually performing in practice, a straightforward method is to sum
14
the total energy inputs for a building for a year, as evidenced by the energy bills,
divided by the measured floor area (SEAI, 2009a:8). In Ireland, the benchmarked
operational EPC is called a Display Energy Certificate, an A (good) to G (bad) rating
system that is renewed annually. Since 2009, all buildings open to the public over 1000
m² in size, including public buildings, are legally required to display this certificate.
Under the revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD-R), this will
apply to all buildings over 250 m² from July 2015 (European Union, 2010).
2.3 Energy Saving and Retrofit Investment Decision-making
2.3.1 Saving Energy: Energy Conservation and Energy Efficiency
To reduce demand, measures need to be taken to save energy, by energy
efficiency or energy conservation, or both (SEAI, 2008). Energy efficiency enables a
result to be achieved with less energy than is currently used, whereas energy
conservation is a reduction in energy usage made simply by the decision to avoid
consuming it (SEAI, 2009b:7). Energy saving usually results in cost saving but if the
saved monies are spent on energy use, through consumption of any kind, a rebound
effect occurs reducing the overall saving, either locally (direct rebound) or more
globally (indirect rebound). As cost, energy use and carbon emissions are strongly
related, similar rebound effects affect each of them. There is great disagreement in the
literature regarding the extent of these effects, some saying they largely cancel out the
efficiency gained (Herring and Sorrell, 2009; Alcott, 2008) and some disagreeing
strongly (Lovins and Lovins, 1997; Ryan and Campbell, 2012:24).
Saving energy can cost less than buying energy, an ‘energy efficiency gap’ that
potentially widens when fuel prices rise rapidly and efficiency costs fall (Lovins and
Lovins, 1997:i). However, there are often serious barriers in organisations, information
15
and markets that prevent investment in improved energy management and capital
projects to limit commitment to future energy usage (Brown, 2001). Allcott and
Greenstone (2012) temper this by finding that the ‘energy efficiency gap’ may not be as
large as engineering-accounting studies suggest. Nonetheless, providing sustainable,
secure energy management structures requires investment and control over both energy
supply and demand Denny and O'Hagan (2011:272).
2.3.2 Funding Energy Efficiency and Retrofit Measures
Financing barriers to funding energy efficiency include: non-availability of funds;
poor information; project scale and development costs; weak risk assessment and
management; and a lack of technical or investment knowledge and capacity (Fig. 1,
IEA, 2011a).
Energy Saving Companies (ESCos) guarantee performance levels and cost
savings in Energy Performance Contracts (EPCs) agreed with energy users. They carry
out retrofit and other measures, and take on the risk of achieving energy savings (SEAI,
2012a). In return they receive payments over the life of the contract and these may be
related to independent measurement and verification (M&V). ESCos can be privately
or publicly run. Local authorities may be wary of transferring risk to private companies,
given their experience of Public Private Partnership (PPP) failures in regeneration work
(Punch, 2009:23-26), outcomes which are not untypical of PPP performance worldwide,
despite their political popularity (Hodge and Greve, 2009). As with PPPs, the public
and private partners to EPCs have divergent goals, so local authorities need expertise to
avoid poor outcomes, due to high transaction costs and knowledge imbalances (Vining
and Boardman, 2008; SEAI, 2012a:18).
16
The logic of rebound and consumption-caused emissions suggests that
governments need to ring-fence revenues from carbon taxes and efficiency savings
toward further spending on carbon-saving efficiency savings, if they are serious about
cutting carbon emissions and sustaining intergenerational equity (Helm, 2008).
Nevertheless, ring-fencing, the reallocation of specific government tax or savings
revenues to specific purposes (also known as Pigouvian taxes, hypothecation or ear-
marking) may not be popular with governments because they typically want flexibility
to spend revenues as they see fit (Spackman, 1997). However, voters can support ring-
fencing more readily if the environmental benefits are made clear (Sælen and
Kallbekken, 2011). Evidence from efficiency programmes in the USA shows that ring-
fencing at least a large percentage of eco-tax revenues and efficiency-related savings to
fund on-going sustainable development measures greatly increases the effect of
interventions (Cowart, 2011).
A portfolio of policies is critical: efficiency labelling and performance standards;
auctions of allowances (as in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme); and a large portion of
carbon tax revenues re-directed back into efficiency measures (Boardman, 2004). With
respect to buildings Cowart (2009) finds that piecemeal approaches make no sense;
whole buildings need system-upgrades rather than making a series of small-scale steps.
Based on actual figures from past programmes, revenue reinvestment programmes that
ring-fence savings toward energy efficiency can save at least seven times more carbon
per consumer unit cost than carbon taxes alone (ibid.). A finance mechanism in line
with this ‘cap and invest’ strategy’ is the ‘revolving fund’ that begins with an initial
investment and requires that returns on the investment go back into the fund to further
investment, as in the Thailand Energy Efficiency Revolving Fund (IEA, 2011a:55-59)
17
and the Revolving Green Fund, ‘invest-to-save’ funding of university energy efficiency
in England (UK Government, 2008:31).
2.3.3 Cost optimal Retrofit and Lifecycle Costing
Though necessary for society and human wellbeing, both new-build and existing
buildings are expensive to build or retrofit, and costly to operate over their lifespan, due
to maintenance and fuel costs (McNicholl and Lewis, 1996; Verbruggen, 2012).
Therefore, when committing to a long-term investment such as new build or retrofit it is
financially and logically prudent to consider ‘whole-life’ costs, benefits and risks. Deep
retrofit of existing buildings is most economically feasible when significant renovation
is undertaken due to major repairs or refitting, typically every 30-40 years (Laustsen,
2008:8). The Department of Finance also state that whole life costs are very important
in costing a design, specifying a 20-50 year study period in the Capital Works
Management Framework (DoF, 2009:55), as demonstrated in a worked example for a
school in Dublin by Kehily and Hore (2012). The EPBD-R directs Member States (MS)
to ensure that major renovations include 'cost optimal level' energy performance
upgrades to building elements or to whole buildings undergoing significant renovation,
with the MS definitions of cost optimal to be submitted and approved by January 2013
(Article 7, European Union, 2010; EU, 2010). 'Cost optimal level' means the lowest
sum total of energy-related investment, maintenance, operating, and disposal costs over
the remaining economic lifecycle of the building or building element as defined by the
MS (Articles 3-5, European Union, 2010; EC-EEE, 2012).
The aim of the EPBD-R is to ensure that investment appraisals of retrofits are
made on the basis of lifecycle costing comparing alternative sets of retrofit measures
(Aggerholm et al., 2011 Section 3). Functional long-lasting buildings are more
18
sustainable if they minimise their total life cycle environmental cost and maximise the
physical and social wellbeing of those who use them (Buys et al., 2011). Life cycle
assessment (LCA) includes all potential environmental effects whereas life cycle
costing (LCC) looks only at the financial costs, but both should include some estimate
of externalities, whether positive or negative (Norris, 2001).
Caplehorn (2012) observes that Whole Life Costing is highly desirable for
sustainability and long-term value but it is frequently not done because it is time
consuming or complex. Certainly, the International Standard for LCC does evince
complication (ISO, 2008). However, in the USA, all federal government departments
and facilities assessing new build or retrofit energy efficiency measures are required to
take decisions based on lifecycle data and appraisal methods to demonstrate long-term
cost-effectiveness and value for money (Capehart et al., 2005:151). Typically, the US
government uses a study period of 25 years (Fuller, 2005). As noted in Section 2.3.6, in
Denmark, a highly simplified LCC is used in building retrofit assessments potentially
enhancing effectiveness of policy through ease of use.
Texts for facility managers discuss Whole Life Costing and financial analysis in
budgeting and procurement to reduce future operating and maintenance costs (Bottom,
2006:212-217; Moss, 2005:118-119). Lifecycle approaches are found to be most
effective in assessing, designing and implementing retrofit actions as part of a rational
decision-making method for retrofit investment (Ardente et al., 2011).
Lifecycle appraisals are good practice and can be applied to all 'energy at risk'
calculations for energy management of future energy use (Russell, 2010: Ch. 6). For all
existing buildings there is a commitment to continue to use energy over the entire
lifecycle of the building. On analysis the current commitment to annual total energy use
can be divided into three parts (Figure 2.1): first, committed energy expenditure that
19
economically cannot be saved; second, ‘energy-at-risk’ which can be economically
saved (comprised of the annualised project costs of all profitable retrofits); and third, an
annual amount comprising either, the savings due to the profitable retrofits and
behavioural measures, or, if the retrofits are not done, the annualised cost of doing
nothing – a penalty often not considered by decision-makers (ibid.:134-136).
Figure 2.1 Retrofit Decision-Making: Saving vs. Penalty for Doing Nothing Redrawn from Figure 6.4, Russell, 2010, with added text referencing Ibid. p.134-136
Investments in energy-smart behavioural practices are highly effective in off-
setting the risks involved in capital retrofit projects (ibid.:87). Where possible, staging
retrofit investments may be the best option in the face of uncertainty (Menassa, 2011), a
finding that may be important for appraisals by capital poor local authorities.
2.3.4 Building retrofit: Active versus Passive Measures, and Co-benefits
Verbruggen et al. (2011) show that the long-term commitment, the
‘irrevocability’ consequent from new build or long-term retrofit decisions should be
accounted for in LCC, a finding in favour of ‘fabric-first’, passive retrofit measures
rather than active technology measures that are at higher risk of premature failure (also
found by Verbeeck and Hens, 2005). Importantly, in a series of papers Little (2011)
shows that some passive measures such as retrofit internal insulation can lead to
20
increased risks of mould and condensation, as well as limited thermal benefit.
Generally, well detailed external insulation entails far less risk producing a more
thermally effective retrofit, in line with the ideal build-up in terms of building physics,
with insulation to the outside of structure, keeping it warmer and dryer (Lstiburek,
2007). Upgrading air tightness or uneven insulation can increase condensation
problems so it is essential to improve ventilation control at the same time (Brown et al.,
2010:8).
The uncosted co-benefits of health and productivity in corporate building retrofits
have been shown to be substantial though they are frequently ignored in assessments
(Yudelson, 2010). Un-costed co-benefits, such as health due to improved comfort
levels should be included in appraisals even if only conservative estimates are made
Ryan and Campbell (2012:26-29). A cost benefit analysis of a large-scale, building
energy efficiency, upgrade programme for dwellings in Ireland, found a Benefit Cost
Ratio (BCR) of 3.0 with energy efficiency making up 57% of the positive return, health
25%, comfort 10% and emissions reductions 8% (Clinch and Healy, 2000).
2.3.5 Investment Data Quality and Relevance in Appraisal
Before an investment appraisal can begin it is critical that the decision-making
costs and benefits data be thoroughly checked for inaccuracies that might affect the
results; the appraisal process is only as good as the data used – good quality data often
takes time and money to obtain (Holmes, 1998:7). A crucial check is to ensure that any
cash flows or savings from the investment are attributable only to the proposed
investment’s commencement (ibid.). Multiple retrofit measures for a building can have
interactive effects if all adopted, so no double counting of savings is allowed in the
investment appraisal (Chidiac et al., 2011). For larger investments it can be advisable
21
to carry out both: a financial assessment, with a sensitivity analysis to look
quantitatively at the effects of possible cost or interest rate changes; and a risk
assessment to examine the robustness of the proposal relative to future uncertainties, be
they an inherent potential for technological failure, or in respect to external effects like
health or ‘deep uncertainties’ like climate change (SEI, 2004; Hallegatte et al., 2012).
It can be difficult to accurately estimate the projected cost or consumption savings
returns on energy efficiency, or verify them after installation, so good baseline data
(adjusted for weather effects) for the building both for the appraisals and after retrofit is
important (Aggerholm et al., 2011:9-10). The process of assessing and confirming
efficiency savings is known as Measurement and Verification (M&V), a critical part of
energy management that may reveal pronounced differences between predicted and
actual energy savings (Fawkes, 2007:56). Behavioural and occupancy rebound effects
can significantly reduce energy savings (Scheer et al., 2012; see also, Hong et al.,
2006).
2.3.6 Investment Appraisal Methods and Considerations
Bandy (2011:140) notes that public sector investments are ‘paid back’ by the
value of public good that they create. To assess investment proposals, appraisal
methods are used to assess the investment quality, to rank them in order of the return
they provide and to give a yes/no answer as to whether they are likely to be profitable
given the input parameters (Holmes, 1998).
Simple payback gives an approximate measure of a project's worth by dividing
the installation cost by the predicted annual savings giving the number of years it would
take for an investment to payback (SEI, 2004:34). Use of simple payback is generally
not advised for assessing energy saving measures because it ignores the time value of
22
money and it also ignores the costs or benefits that accrue after the investment period
(Holmes, 1998:29). Other problems are that its use can build in a bias toward short-
payback riskier projects and many projects that could increase wealth are rejected
(Ibid.). In spite of this Investing in Energy SEI (2004:30-48) discusses both simple
payback and DCF methods but does not state a preference, though remarking that lower
risk, longer life investments should be given a longer time to payback (Ch. 4).
Energy management and investment appraisal references are generally critical of
using the simple payback method of cost analysis and strongly encourage the use of
discounted cash flow (DCF) analyses such as Net Present Value (NPV) or Internal Rate
of Return, IRR (Capehart et al., 2005; Kreith and Goswami, 2007; Holmes, 1998).
NPV is preferred for project appraisal by the EU (EC, 2012b), and the Department of
Finance (DoF, 2009). DCF methods, such as NPV, allow for the time value of money
by including a discount rate, related to the rates at which finance is available and
organisation preferences, and an escalation rate, such as a forecast inflation rate in the
price of energy (Kehily, 2012).
Typically, a positive NPV signifies a worthwhile investment (Koetse et al.:176).
If a building owner is constrained from carrying out positive NPV projects because of
an inability to raise funds (capital rationing) this amounts to market failure (Holmes,
1998:106). Either the market needs better information or the owner is making a
decision that it does not want to take on debt, even if the positive NPV suggests that the
debt can be covered without problem (ibid., Ch. 8).
However, Montier (2009:47-55) notes that DCF methods can also have problems,
by leading to mistaken confidence when it is not possible to accurately predict the
future, and recommends an annualising method of gauging 'earning power’. Russell
(2010:134-136) uses a similar method in annualising the DCF retrofit cost giving an
23
annualised profitability index, that has the advantage of directly comparing current fuel
cost with the effective fuel cost after retrofit.
Benefit to Cost Ratio (BCR) also known as Profitability Index (PI), simply
dividing the benefits by the costs, whether discounted or not, is a method recommended
by financial management texts as giving a measure of the relative amount of return
(Helfert, 2002:264). In cases of capital rationing the aim of an investor is to maximise
the return (NPV) that the available capital can generate, so ranking alternative proposals
by BCR enables decision-makers to choose all the highest BCR proposals with total
investment costs that sum to the available amount of capital (Holmes, 1998:109).
In Denmark, a modified, non-discounted form of BCR is used for its simplicity
(Aggerholm, 2009). In looking at retrofit measures particularly at major renovation,
differing lifetimes are specified for different types of measure – for example, for
insulation forty years and for lighting twenty years. By defining a definite ‘profitability
threshold’, stating that if a measure delivers a profit of more than 33% over its lifetime
then “It is required to implement the measure”, the Danish rules simplify policy and
application (Aggerholm, 2011).
2.3.7 Lifecycle Investment: Global Risks and Local Implications
Unsustainable global trends (Drexhage and Murphy, 2012:19) need to be
considered, even by local decision-makers, if appraising the values of multi-decadal
investments like building retrofit or replacement alternatives in the face of uncertainty
(Bulkeley and Betsill, 2005). Two major concerns for the next three decades, a typical
lifecycle for buildings, are global warming and peak oil. Local decision-making that
accounts for high potential uncertainties through planned local management and
24
resilience policies has been shown to increase the robustness and cost-effectiveness of
infrastructure decisions (Hallegatte et al., 2012:34).
2.4 Energy Policy and Local Authority Implementation
As discussed above in Sections 2.2 and 2.3, good practice in energy management
requires clearly stated policy, management involvement in implementation, energy
accounting and investment appraisal, monitoring and reporting, and on-going
assessment of outcomes (the order of the EMM in Table 1.1). Noting the relationship to
other governance levels, these themes are discussed in this order below as they relate to
local authority energy management and retrofit investment, particularly in Co. Dublin.
2.4.1 Energy and Carbon Emission Policies and Targets
2.4.1.1 European Energy and Climate Policy
Although domestic (not 'total') carbon emissions is one of the three 2020 policy
targets Wood (2010) contends that the emphasis of the European Union has been on
maintaining energy security by securing fossil fuel supplies, increasing renewable
energy, and reducing consumption. This combination led to the EU’s Climate and
Energy Package (EC, 2012a) with the so-called 20:20:20 by 2020 targets (da Graça
Carvalho, 2012): aiming to reduce domestic GHG emissions by 20% from 1990 levels;
to supply 20% of energy needs from renewables; and to reduce energy consumption by
20% by increasing energy efficiency (Nugent, 2010:345).
Already by 2009, it was clear that the non-binding energy efficiency target would
not be met, mainly due to diminishing political will (with Member States distracted by
the Euro crisis) and financial commitment to the required capital investments in
changed circumstances (da Graça Carvalho, 2012:21). The recently approved Energy
Efficiency Directive (EED) will now replace the Energy Services Directive (ESD) but
25
the 20% target has become a 17% target and remains non-binding. The expectation is in
fact of 15% savings by 2020, and only central government, not local authority,
buildings are included in the new 3% annual renovation rate (Euractiv.com, 2012;
Rabitte, 2012). The EED does introduce an obligation of 1.5% of energy sales on
energy suppliers, requiring them to invest that amount in energy efficiency measures for
customers (Rabitte, 2012).
Although they use less energy than water and public lighting, buildings are a
significant cost for local authorities (SEAI, 2011c, p.6;). Improved energy management
and retrofit upgrading of existing buildings have repeatedly been identified by
governments and experts, including those in the EU and Ireland, as cost effective, high
priority measures for reducing carbon emissions and increasing energy efficiency
(DCENR, 2009). However, despite the claimed benefits and strongly stated policies,
achieving actual savings has been slow and the savings obtained are often less than
those targeted as the drive for a new Energy Efficiency Directive has shown (EC,
2012c:1).
2.4.1.2 Energy and Climate Policy in Ireland
Ireland has clear headline policy targets regarding carbon dioxide emissions and
energy use in the public sector, to which local authorities are also bound as stated in the
Climate Policy (DECLG, 2011) and the National Energy Efficiency Action Plan
(DCENR, 2009). The NEEAP describes investing in energy efficiency as imperative
and Government has identified the need for the public sector to lead by example. It has
therefore been given a target of reducing energy use by 33% by 2020 (ibid.:22-28).
Public sector energy use, of about 6,920 GWh in 2007, has in the past only been
calculated as a estimated ‘residual’, the remainder after subtracting industrial,
residential and transport usage from the total national energy supplied (ibid.:49).
26
Dublin has signed The Covenant of Mayors, an international agreement linking
cities committing signatories to reducing their city’s carbon emissions by at least 20%
before 2020 (Codema, 2009). However, none of the targets in any of these documents
are disaggregated in any way among public sector bodies so that differentiated budget
targets are set corresponding to differing potential attainment levels. They also lack
penalties for non-achievement weakening their effectiveness. Only the Climate Policy
has legally enforceable penalties by way of ‘flexible measures’ or carbon credits, credits
that will be needed to enable Ireland to meet the EU target (NESC, 2012:37).
Approximately 20% of non-ETS related emissions in Ireland stem from building-
related emissions, a considerable proportion though less, due to high agricultural and
transport emissions, than the 40% figure found in Europe generally (BPIE, 2011, p.19;).
Irish government departments in these areas are endeavouring to ensure that their
sectors do not have to bear the burden of the emissions reductions that are planned, as
evidenced by recent presentations by their officials (IIEA, 2012)
2.4.1.3 Public Sector – Policies, Programmes and Targets
The exemplar role of the public sector in achieving improved energy efficiency
under the Energy Services Directive is restated in the recently published Energy Use in
the Public Sector (SEAI, 2012h), which provides many details that were previously
unpublished. The policy drivers for energy efficiency are EU legislation (ESD to be
replaced by the EED, and the EPBD-R) and national initiatives including transposing
the directives and energy efficient and green public procurement.
The SEAI’s public sector programme has four key elements: partnership
agreements to engage with top level managers; best practice exchange between public
bodies at all levels and internationally; building new funding and procurement models;
27
and much improved monitoring and reporting. The document urges public sector
bodies to engage with SEAI through basic, full and exemplar energy management
programmes including SEAI’s Energy MAP. Data on public sector energy use has been
poor but this is beginning to change. As from January 2011, all public bodies have to
report their energy performance to SEAI and in their own annual reports.
Regarding the exemplary role assigned to the public service, NGOs have been
critical of central government performance recently and in the past. A recent report
praised the OPW’s Optimising Power@Work energy efficiency campaign and SEAI
schemes, but castigated slow progress in the Departments of Education, Health and
Social Protection (DFOE, 2012). Hernan (2010) compares the lack of binding policy
requirements or sanctions enforcing policy in the Republic of Ireland to the mandatory
participation in the UK Energy Efficiency Scheme applying to the public sector in
Northern Ireland. In this scheme, all participants buy carbon allowances and revenues
are recycled to the participants based on the emissions reductions that they actually
achieve.
In Denmark in the 2000s, the public sector had been directed to “lead the way”
and was, with the household sector, the target for many government policies. However,
a review of Danish energy efficiency policy disappointingly found that in 100 public
buildings (totalling 1 million m2) EUI increased by 10% in electricity use and by 4% for
heating (Togeby et al., 2009:305). Ireland is following a similar policy so this may be a
salutary example worthy of further study.
2.4.1.4 Dublin City Council – Policies and Targets
The 2010 Dublin City Sustainable Energy Action Plan, or SEAP (DCC/Codema,
2010b), published following Dublin City Council’s signing of the Covenant of Mayors
28
in 2009, examined the cost and potential of using 18 measures for reducing carbon
emissions in Dublin City. The net annual investment required was estimated at €200
million. Upgrading boilers has minimal net carbon abatement cost but renewable
energy infrastructure, demolishing older houses and window replacement are very
costly. In the SEAP, the fiscal incentives are to come from national and European grant
programmes. Past behavioural actions noted are the Switch-Off campaign, a Workplace
Travel Plan, and the Minus 3% project (proving that 3% annual energy saving is viable)
though no on-going management targets are mentioned.
Dublin’s per capita carbon emissions from existing buildings are noted as being
25% more than London’s and more than twice Stockholm’s. The Dublin City Climate
Change Strategy sets out the 20% carbon emissions reduction target, the 3% per annum
public sector energy saving target and also states that progress in the twelve named
indicators will be reviewed annually (DCC/Codema, 2008). A full first year review was
published in 2009 (DCC, 2009); however, no further reviews have been published
(DCC, 2012a).
DCC owns 26,500 housing units, some with a history of fuel poverty (RTE,
2011). A Housing Energy Action Plan is mentioned as being currently developed by
the Housing Department and Codema. Although the SEAP refers to a defined 2006
baseline (DCC/Codema, 2010a) and headline targets, the schedule of actions (regarding
buildings, transport and renewable energy) does not itemise the results expected or give
performance indicators to measure verifiable progress, potentially weakening the plan’s
value.
29
2.4.2 National and Local Governance in Ireland
Governance in Ireland is highly centralised with local government having a much
smaller role even though it acts as an agent in delivering many services funded by
central government and has the advantage of closeness to local residents (Lane,
2011:69). A report by Indecon (2005) found that local government is heavily dependent
on central funding and advocated more financial independence. Following the
economic crisis though, both capital and current public spending have been curtailed
and will be very restricted in the near to medium future (Lane, 2011:72-84).
MacCarthaigh (2012) details how cabinet government in Ireland has been
described as having ministerially controlled “silo-like” departments but has also
developed ‘delegated governance’ in assigning responsibilities to agencies of varying
kinds. However, the Irish application of ‘agencification’ has been diverse and
unstructured, producing a complex ‘organisational zoo’ with many agencies, of many
kinds, with varying degrees of accountability to government, or autonomy from it,
(ibid.:131-135), echoing Brundtland’s concerns about the wisdom of devolving
management responsibilities to agencies (Para. 34-35, UN-WCED, 1997). This would
also seem to be potentially at odds with energy management good practice, which
directs managers to lead responsibility for energy saving.
MacCarthaigh and O'Malley (2012:260-263) conclude that reform proposals are
often not implemented or get bogged down in process rather than emphasising results.
They identify a lack of specialist skills across government and an urgent need for
national and local government coordination with far more local input and
empowerment. Performance evaluation and accountability with systemised monitoring
are also viewed as critical to improve governance at all levels. With a quotation from
Machiavelli, Considine and Reidy (2012:102) illustrate the difficulties of overcoming
30
‘path dependency’, resistance to change, in institutions and bureaucracies. They
identify the need for ‘critical junctures’ within institutions so that critical opportunities
for change are realised to break from established patterns that add to policy inertia
ibid.:104). They conclude that ‘critical moments’, like Ireland’s on-going, ‘five part’
interlocking crisis (NESC, 2009), may not necessarily result in such changes occurring,
particularly when judged by past Irish political history.
2.4.3 Dublin City Council Energy Usage
2.4.3.1 DCC Annual Reports 2010 and 2011
In the Annual Report for 2011, Dublin City had Operational Expenses (including
energy) of €279 million although no specific energy cost figures are shown in the
Annual Reports for 2010 and 2011 (DCC, 2012d). Separately, an analysis of council
energy usage is given stating electricity use (72 GWh) but no figures are given for gas
usage, total energy use or carbon emissions (ibid., Appendix 9). Mention is made of
energy performance initiatives, the largest being Ballymun Regeneration work with
savings of 10 GWh. Kilbarrack Fire Station, the world's first carbon-neutral fire station
is noted as saving 633 MWh.
The 2010 and 2011 DCC energy costs (DCC, pc) were as shown in Table 2.3.
The rise of 28% in gas cost from 2010 to 2011, in spite of a warmer year in 2011 than
2010, is particularly notable and is likely to be cause for concern.
Table 2.3 DCC Energy Costs 2010 and 2011
31
(Figures supplied by DCC, personal communication)
Data quality problems were noted in the recent SEAI report (SEAI, 2012h) and
there are some large apparent inconsistencies in the figures given for DCC energy use
by the NEEAP (DCENR, 2009:53)and the DCC SEAP (DCC/Codema, 2010b). The
difference between these figures amounts is more than 30%, indicating possible
uncertainties, casting doubt on the usefulness of the headline policy targets.
DCC leisure centres are part of the Recreation and Amenity Department that had
expenditures or 77.9 million with income of €11.2 million. Both the 2010 and 2011
Annual Reports make special mention of on-going provision required for the three
stand-alone swimming pools at Crumlin, Sean McDermott Street and Coolock (DCC,
2012d:85). The 2011 report notes the reduced income across the leisure centres and the
aim to maintain services.
2.4.4 Funding Local Authority Retrofit
2.4.4.1 Social Housing Retrofit Grant Funding
Investment in local authority energy retrofitting comes in annually provided
grants from the DECLG for social housing retrofit and from DCENR through SEAI, or
other from departments, through grant schemes that can fund public building retrofit.
Curtin (2009) states that about 1.2 million homes require retrofit to reach a C1 BER,
which would take 85 years at the 2009 level of investment. A National Energy Retrofit
Programme is being planned for both domestic and non-domestic sectors to be funded
by the new EED energy supplier obligation and by new market energy service providers
such as ESCos (DCENR, 2010).
Energy retrofits to this local authority owned dwellings are part-funded by the
Social Housing Improvement Programme (SHIP) with funding amounts based on the
32
improvements achieved in BER ratings (DEHLG, 2010; for statistics see DECLG,
2012a). Total SHIP funding for 2012 is €251 million in capital allocations to local
authorities (O'Sullivan, 2012).
Fuel poverty affects close to 20% of Irish households with serious effects on
health and comfort, yet addressing them would have high net benefits for the State and
yet the poverty persists (Scott et al., 2008). Scheer (2012) describes how reallocation of
the current €465 million in energy subsidies could be effectively reallocated, within
current funding, to energy efficiency upgrades with significant benefits for the economy
and subsidised households in fuel poverty. Given the high net real financial benefits
accruing from these long-term investments according to these economic analyses, it
follows that it is either the nature of the problem politically, or the length of the
investment, or both, that inhibits action. Some small pilot ‘area-retrofits’ have been
carried out in fuel poverty affected areas: in Tralee, Co. Kerry and in Dundalk, Co.
Louth, estates of private and public houses were upgraded using SHIP and SEAI
funding (SEAI, 2011a; Ó Dónaill, 2011).
A ‘fabric-first’ approach, insulating and increasing air tightness, is found to be
potentially effective in reducing energy use and carbon emissions in an analysis by
Wyse (2012) of the potential option in upgrading social housing in Co. Wicklow, but
the study notes that this is not common practice in current local authority retrofit
programmes.
2.4.4.2 Better Energy Workplaces: Retrofit Grant Funding
The Better Energy Workplaces scheme, aiming “to deliver a major increase in
pace, scale and depth of sustainable energy investments in upgrading existing buildings
and facilities” (SEAI, 2012c) with a total fund of €7.5 million for part-funding of
33
energy retrofits to private or public sector buildings was announced on 14 March by
DCENR, with applications to SEAI to be received by 30 April and successful applicants
to be informed in June (SEAI). The Application Guide (SEAI, 2012c) was published on
21 March 2012 for public and private sector applicants seeking grant part-funding of
retrofit projects from the 2012 BEW scheme. If approved for funding by SEAI, a non-
commercial public sector application would typically receive the 35% of eligible costs
up to 50% in exceptional circumstances. A particular focus is on applicants involving
third-party ESCo or energy supplier involvement to engender ‘pay as you save’ longer
term funding for projects, thereby increasing the scale of this funding mechanism
(SEAI, 2012a:15).
Ewing et al. (2005:30) critique an earlier SEAI grant scheme for not following
Aarhus Convention provisions in being open to public consultation to learn from
community experience in regard to maximising investment returns or market choice.
2.5 The DCC and DFB Green Plan
Developed and instigated by Fire-Fighter Neil McCabe of Dublin Fire Brigade
(DFB), the Green Plan was instigated in Kilbarrack Fire Station in 2007 and has been
supported by DCC (DCC, 2011). Founded on the four sustainability pillars of The
Natural Step programme, the Plan’s two core principles are behavioural change,
increasing the awareness of energy and water use, and carbon emission reduction,
aiming to trade in the Irish Voluntary Carbon Market by 2011 (McCabe, 2011b). The
plan, focuses on seven areas: energy, water, waste, biodiversity, transport, society and
procurement (DCC, 2010). Numerous verified results are listed by McCabe (2011b).
The flagship project at Kilbarrack Fire Station has involved firefighters in
adopting sustainable responsibility as a new ethos in their work as well as utilising
34
capital investments in water and energy saving technology that have combined to make
very large savings that are being reinvested in further energy saving. Over 85% of
water for fire fighting is now collected from the station’s roof and energy demand has
been cut by more than 80% in two years, paying back the total upgrade investment in
3.3 years and with an on-going saving of over €37,000 per year (McCabe, 2011a).
These are exceptional savings when compared to public building retrofits
elsewhere in Europe where deep retrofit savings of 20-70% are more common (Erhorn-
Kluttig et al., 2004; Ardente et al., 2011).
2.6 Literature Review Conclusion
Comparing the energy management literature to the public sector documents
appears to show inconsistencies. The former stresses linked, consumption and cost
energy accounting and sustained managerial support for operational energy saving
programmes. By contrast, published Dublin annual reports and national policy figures
do not link energy costs with energy consumption in kWh and carbon emissions.
Unlike the European carbon emissions target, national and Dublin energy policy
targets lack staged performance indicators or sanctions that would register progress or
invoke renewed effort. Public sector energy use is not accurately known nationally and
the baseline energy use given for Dublin City Council appears to vary significantly
between documents indicating problems with methodology or data, undermining the
validity of the targets. High per capita carbon emissions, a high level of fuel poverty
and notably high running costs in older swimming pools suggest problems with past,
and perhaps, existing energy policy and implementation.
35
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Methodology Outline
Following an overall sequential approach, the research aim was to produce data to
assess whether national energy and emissions policy, in its implementation at local level
in Co. Dublin, is consistent with good practice in energy management and retrofit
investment. The results would potentially be generalisable both to local authorities
nationally and to national energy saving policy with respect to local authorities.
Three individual methods were used within this guiding design:
1. Observation by survey of a specific sub-case: the energy management of DCC
leisure centres with analysis of DECs and identification of energy saving
potential;
2. Documentary analysis of guidance and data sourced from a DCC application for
retrofit funding, later approved by SEAI, with analysis using standard government
and value investment principles;
3. In-depth interviews with informed respondents to extend the research to the
overall local authority approaches to energy management and investment.
3.2 Research Strategy
The focus of this research is specific to the current organisation of energy
management and building retrofit in the Co. Dublin local authorities so it formed a
defined 'case’, initially based on DCC leisure centres, for which a case study research
strategy would be appropriate. A case should be located in a 'natural setting', being
something or somewhere that exists already rather than being generated artificially to
test theories (Denscombe, 2010, Chapter 2;).
36
This study's case is: local authority implementation of national policy on carbon
emissions and energy efficiency, particularly, though not exclusively, relating to public
buildings and social housing. The case study approach is especially valuable in
providing holistic explanations of why particular behaviours, delays or end-results occur
in complex organisational situations – by investigating processes, interrelationships, and
underlying details that contribute to the outcomes (ibid., Chapter 2;).
Multiple methods with multiple data sources are particularly appropriate to
complex problem types, provided the methods follow a logical research procedure
(ibid., Chapter 8;). Creswell and Plano Clark (2011, p.81-86) observe that case study
strategies are often 'mixed method' strategies involving both qualitative and quantitative
research methods. The use of alternative methods provides 'triangulation,' giving a
more complete picture of the subject by obtaining complementary data that may or may
not corroborate the findings (Denscombe, 2010, p.348;).
The overall strategy adopted for this case study research can be depicted in the
notational shorthand of mixed method designs as 'qual/quan ➔ QUAL' (ibid., Table 4.1),
following an explanatory design (ibid., Figure 3.4) such that the initial qualitative and
quantitative research was followed emergently by a deeper phase of qualitative research
interviews exploring the different aspects of policy in practice as viewed by informed
respondents.
3.3 Research Methods
3.3.1 Methodology for Leisure Centre Surveys
Surveys of nineteen Dublin City Council leisure centres were carried out during a
work-placement at the City of Dublin Energy Management Agency (Codema) –
summarised in the DCC Leisure Centres: Display Energy Certificate Advisory Report
37
by Codema for the Culture, Recreation and Amenity Department of DCC submitted in
July 2012 (Price, 2012). The finished report summarised common and building-specific
energy-usage problems and potential solutions.
The 'walk-through surveys' carried out are the most basic level of building energy
audit (Kelsey and Pearson, 2011). This type of on-site, brief building survey aims to
make a simplified, energy-usage description of the building (covering lighting, heating,
ventilation and fabric) and to list basic energy-saving opportunities identified by the
survey including observations and energy-usage comments made by staff. For each
building, a measurement of the building's heated area was made using a laser-measuring
device to take length measurements. Rough site sketches recording the measurements
and, where possible, drawings available on-site, were then used to calculate the heated
floor area of the building. Survey conclusions relevant to the research question are
reported in the Chapter 4. Combining the measured area with energy usage billing data
from the Codema database enabled calculation of a provisional DEC rating using the
SEAI DEC Tool spreadsheet (SEAI, 2012g).
Further analysis (see Section 4.2 and 4.3) tabulated and charted the data, total
energy use and energy utilisation index (EUI), to provide comparisons of the existing
energy use and the extent of the available data for the centres. An additional scatter
chart analysis of the leisure centres on a graph of total energy cost versus energy cost
index (ECI) was made to evaluate this chart type’s usefulness in identifying locations
that might yield the largest energy savings given appropriate energy management.
38
3.3.2 Methodology for Document Analysis
• Documents analysed: SEAI Better Energy Workplaces Guide and an Application
Form as submitted by DCC, 30 April 2012.
The document analysis sought to assess whether a current government retrofit
grant-funding scheme (Better Energy Workplaces 2012) is consistent with accepted
investment principles for data quality and investment appraisal for deep retrofit. The
application form itself and the BEW application guide became a source for research
data. This was examined to give insights into the operation of current government
energy saving policy that aims to encourage wider and deeper investment in building
retrofits, particularly targeting investment innovation though the involvement of ESCos
and energy suppliers (SEAI, 2012b). The analysis involved examining the BEW
Application Guide and a BEW Application Form (referred to hereafter as Guide and
Form) submitted by DCC on 30 April 2012 and approved by SEAI for grant funding on
16 August 2012. As Denscombe (2010, Ch.12) notes, such documents are an
authoritative source of data and analysis that can be used to determine the accuracy of
the figures given, or the presence of bias and errors, thereby providing indicative
assessments of their likely effects.
3.3.2.1 Document Description and Data
The Form's numerical data were tabulated and observations were made about the
form as submitted. Where there were spaces on the form for information, the general
level of detail in these were noted. These findings are in Section 5.5.1.
3.3.2.2 Assessment of Data Quality and Relevance before Appraisal
As the quality and relevance of an investment proposal's data must be assessed
before undertaking financial appraisal (p.28 Holmes, 1998), the Sub-Project data
39
provided was qualitatively assessed using three quality parameters that must be
confirmed, insofar as possible, before any financial appraisal can proceed:
a) Were the annual savings predicted for each Sub-Project "solely attributable to
commencement" of the investment measure (p.8 ibid.);
b) Were the Sub-Projects for a particular building fully independent or is some
double counting of savings possible because the combined savings of the
measures overlap if two or more are installed. Only the ‘incremental’ benefits of
each added measure can be included in a financial appraisal (p.8-9 ibid.)
c) Were the data and assumptions for costing the measures robust enough to
commit to an investment insofar as can be judged from the application form? To
quote Holmes (1998:7): "the investment appraisal process can only be as good
as the data on which any calculations are based."
Taking the Application Form as an example, findings were made indicating where
these parameters may, or may not, have been met or where the assumptions made in
preparing the data appeared to be uncertain.
3.3.2.3 Methodology for Comparison of Alternative Appraisal Methods
The financial appraisal methods mentioned by the guide and used in the
application were identified and any supporting information for lifecycle costing or
discounting methods of appraisal was noted. To inform discussion of alternative
financial appraisal methods, the Form’s sixteen retrofit proposals were used as a
hypothetical basis to inform an examination of appraisal methodologies (for findings
see Section 5.5.3). This comparison was undertaken because no such illustration
comparing the methods was seen in the literature and it might therefore provide findings
40
useful in choosing appraisal methods in regard to ranking or accept/reject decision-
making.
An Excel spreadsheet was made to make these calculations for the various
appraisals, in part based on and checked against the Excel formulas and examples
provided by Kehily (2012). Kehily (pc) confirmed that 15 years would be a reasonable
minimum lifetime over which to compare investments for NPV results so, for
consistency in comparison (Ruegg and Short, 2007:3.22), this was used as a base period
for all appraisals, except for a variable lifecycle method in use in Denmark for retrofit
appraisal. The spreadsheet was made using the total costs and energy savings data as
provided on the Form (using standardised gas and electricity costs to correct Form data
errors) as well as using accepted government figures for nominal discount and inflation
rates as inputs.
Five appraisal methods were compared: Simple payback; Net Present Value
(NPV); Profitability Index (PI), also called Benefit to Cost Ratio (BCR); annualised PI,
giving the effective energy cost after retrofit (Russell, 2010); and the Danish PI method
as described by Aggerholm (2011). The latter, a simple non-DCF method with a clear
acceptance level, weights the study period for individual measures relative to their
likely service life. This was also modelled for the projects to show an alternative
method for retrofit assessment currently in use for building retrofit appraisal elsewhere
in Europe.
Using output from the spreadsheet, this analysis aimed to clearly illustrate the
decision-making differences between alternative appraisal methods. For this
hypothetical comparison, the Form data was found to have inconsistent base energy
costs, so the savings data was normalised using a single cost each for electricity and gas,
and multiplying by the kWh savings given. For the NPV and PI calculations, the
41
lifecycle used was set at fifteen years. The installation costs in the Form were assumed
to be the total cost for the calculation. (Whereas for a lifecycle costing, all discounted
costs over the lifecycle would normally be included, and any resale or residual value of
the measure would count as a benefit.) The nominal discount rate used was 6.7%, the
Government capital investment rate as of 2010 for projects of 5 to 20 years (DPER,
2012). The escalation rate for energy cost increases used was 3.1% (Scheer and
Motherway, 2011:7). This resulted in a real discount rate of 3.5%, compared to the 4%
used by Scheer and Motherway.
Table 3.1 Appraisal Methods, Definitions and Acceptance
The appraisal methods are shown in Table 3.1. As for all appraisals the data must
pass the criteria listed in 3.3.2.2 before the appraisal is done. A comparison chart of the
proposal rankings using different appraisals was then made to facilitate discussion.
3.3.2.4 Limitations of the Document Analysis Methodology
This analysis was limited to assessing the type and comparative usefulness of
investment appraisal that the Guide and Form mention. No conclusions are made about
the DCC data assumptions except where the assumptions appear to be in conflict with
42
investment principles, or with other relevant data found within the application or from
other sources. The Guide and the layout of the Form are the same for all applications so
the descriptive findings are applicable to the BEW 2012 fund. Different applicants
would have filled out the form differently so the analysis of the data given covers just
this case as it informs its grading or appraisals.
The spreadsheet-based comparative analyses for this form are intended to chart
the relative rankings and different acceptance criteria of the alternative appraisal
methods using the Form data as a basis. For the purposes of this illustration, the Form
data was used by hypothetically assuming that all of the (normalised) savings data was
of high quality and met appraisal quality thresholds.
Although sensitivity analyses were carried out using the spreadsheet, with
different discount and escalation rates and different life cycle periods, only one analysis
is illustrated, as the aim is only to compare the results of different appraisal methods to
more clearly illustrate their relative decision-making usefulness.
3.3.3 Methodology for In-depth Interviews
3.3.3.1 Interview Methodology Basis
Interviewing knowledgeable respondents emerged as the most appropriate
method for answering the questions arising from the findings from the initial research
methods. Long-form interviews require large amounts of time in organisation,
transcription and analysis, so the relatively few informants need to be chosen according
to the insights they may have due to the position they hold or their experience
(Denscombe, 2010, p.181;).
Kvale (2007:35-36) sets out seven stages of an interview enquiry, which directed
the sequence of the research method: ‘thematising’ and design, through interviewing
43
and transcription to analysing (based on key topics related to the research question), by
verifying the data by cross-comparison, and finally reporting the data in rigorous and
readable form. The following outline gives a summary of the interview design used and
how these stages of interview enquiry were undertaken.
3.3.3.2 Interviewee Selection
For this research, interviewees with knowledge of local authority energy
management and/or building retrofit were chosen, largely focusing on Dublin City
Council, as this was the origin of the initial data. Concentrating on Dublin City alone
would have given a small range of data given the scope of the research question,
covering only a highly urban, very large local authority with many older buildings.
Extending the interviews to a respondent architect, from adjacent peri-urban authorities
in Dún Laoghaire (DLRCC), a smaller authority with many older buildings, and in
South Dublin (SDCC), also smaller but with many newer buildings and a large amount
of social housing, enabled two reference interviews with county architects giving some
triangulation of data and potentially a larger range of applicability for the research
conclusions.
The interviewees were chosen for their knowledge of the leisure centres, energy
management, buildings, building retrofit, and energy billing and consumption
accounting to give a wide range of expertise to provide data to answer the research
question. Two interviewees were responsible for monitoring grant money to local
authorities, ten interviewees were from the local authorities and one was independent of
government.
Each interview was recorded to an MP3 file using a digital voice recorder and
then transcribed by the author into a text file. The total recorded time for the thirteen
44
interviews was 783 minutes, varying in length from 39 to 94 minutes with an average
interview length of 60 minutes. The respondents interviewed for this dissertation
research were:
• Paul Altman – Architect, Architecture and Building Standards, Department of
Environment, Communities and Local Government.
• Mary Balfe – Finance Office, Dublin City Council
• Patrick Barry – Architect, Irish Green Building Council;
• Jim Beggan – Manager, Leisure Centres; Culture, Recreation and Amenity
Department, Dublin City Council;
• Athena Candy – Senior Staff Officer, Corporate Services, Dublin City Council;
• Sarah Cassidy – Architect, Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council
• Matt Carroll – Architect, City Architects, Dublin City Council;
• Eddie Conroy – County Architect, South Dublin County Council;
• Joe Hayden – Energy engineer, City of Dublin Energy Management Agency;
• Cormac Healy – Duty Officer, Poppintree Leisure Centre, Dublin City Council;
• Neil McCabe – Firefighter, Kilbarrack Fire Station, Dublin Fire Brigade
• Colum O'Ruanaidh – Architect, Architecture and Building Standards, Department
of Environment, Communities and Local Government.
• Alan Ryan – Programme manager, Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland;
• Gerry Wardell – Director, City of Dublin Energy Management Agency.
3.3.3.3 Interview Framework, Topics and Individualised Guides
The informants have extensive knowledge directly relating to the research
question but have greatly differing positions and experience. Therefore the interview
45
design called for a generalised 'interview schedule’ listing the main topics related to the
research question as a basis for individual interview guides and mainly open questions
appropriate to the background of the informant (Gibbs, 2011). More direct, follow-up
questions were included in the guides to confirm specific data or hypotheses relating the
interview topics. For each interview, a slightly revised guide was made but the
underlying topics were the same for each. Such an in-depth approach required longer
interviews (of 40 to 60 minutes in length) to elicit insights and sufficient time to cover
the main areas of interest.
Figure 3.1 Interview Topics Derived from EMM Categories..
The main topics for the interview plan (Figure 3.1) were identified on the basis of
an EMM (Table 2.1) dividing the overall application of energy management into
descriptive categories and assigning a zero to four level of attainment to each.
3.3.3.4 Interview Data
The full interview data, the transcriptions (with codings and comments) are
printed in Volume 2 of the dissertation.
46
3.3.3.5 Commenting and Coding of Interview Data
For analysis, the text transcription for each interview was transferred to a
Microsoft Word document so that ‘document comments’ could be made and
automatically sequentially numbered. Each mark-up comment was made by identifying
a section of a respondent’s response that was relevant to a coding category; the code
was then assigned, and a level of attainment and a level of governance to which the
coding was applied was noted, as guided by the EMM (Table 2.1) and the coding frame
(Figure 3.2) based on it that was used to more clearly identify the topic of a coded
response.
For example, a response containing reference to good energy management
communication between council departments would be assigned an MS3L coding: ‘MS’
indicating the ‘Management Structure’ category; ‘3’ a good level of attainment; and ‘L’
signifying the ‘Local Authority’ level of governance. If comments referred to relations
between levels of governance the higher level was identified in the coding as being the
more relevant one.
For each coding made, an associated comment was also made to justify the coding
and/or to give a brief description of the response to aid in collecting and sorting
findings. The codings rely on the coding process, the range of questions asked and the
way in which respondents chose to answer them.
47
Figure 3.2 Coding Frame for Interview Data derived from Typical EMM..
The coding is used to categorise respondent responses by matching them to the description given.
3.3.3.6 Coding and Coding Analysis of the Interviews
To sort and analyse the codings, each coding and associated comment made in the
Word document for an interview was copied into a line of a worksheet along with the
interview number and comment number. A hierarchical sorting by EMM topic, then by
level of governance, and finally by level of attainment was made. This analysis method
eased the location of similar comments in the whole set of interviews allowing all like-
coded comments to be collated into findings. To sort categories that had large numbers
of codings, a second sort of the codings spreadsheet was made, to give appropriate sub-
categories to further simplify collation of the findings regarding similar topic points
(collating similar or dissimilar responses to the points).
The interview findings are presented as a text summary aiming to accurately
reflect respondent comments within the seven EMM coding category headings. The
brief coding comments served only as a location and sorting mechanism. In
48
summarising the findings, the original response was the guide rather than the coding
comment.
3.4 Limitations to the Research Strategy and Methods
A case study concentrates research on a definite, limited and self-contained area
of policy, programme, occurrence or place (Denscombe, 2010:55). By definition, case
study research has limitations because it provides a limited view of a particular case
(ibid., p.304;). For this dissertation, the researched local authority is primarily Dublin
City with some reference as comparators to two adjacent authorities, South Dublin and
Dún Laoghaire Rathdown, potentially limiting the applicability of research findings to
larger urban local authorities.
‘Walk-through’ level energy audits are time-limited (one to four hours) and the
conclusions reached in surveys partly rely on conversations with leisure centre staff of
varying knowledge of energy management. The data analysis was limited by the quality
and quantity of data available.
The simplified investment appraisal analysis presented was not an in-depth
analysis specifically addressing data or technical issues. It was limited to an overview
of the documents as they were relevant to the research question and in investigating
current practice in retrofit investment appraisal. Alternative methods of appraisal were
investigated as they were recommended by the literature review.
There are limitations to in-depth interview research with expert informants,
particularly the relative lack of knowledge of the interviewer (as detailed by ibid.:193).
Coding of interview data reduces these limitations to some degree but can introduce
additional bias. Each of these potential shortcomings will be individually considered in
discussion in Chapter 7.
49
CHAPTER 4 LEISURE CENTRE SURVEY
4.1 Observations and Findings: Leisure Centre Survey Report
The nineteen surveyed leisure centres form a varied set of buildings that may be
usefully grouped according to age, usage and size. In general, the centres divide into
two age groups: older buildings (three swimming pools, two sports halls, and an all-
weather centre) built in the period 1968 to 1990; and, more modern buildings, mostly
sports and leisure centres built since 1990 and particularly since 2000.
By usage, the surveyed centres may be grouped as follows: seven with swimming
pools (three stand alone swimming pools; three large leisure centres including
swimming pools; and one pool and fitness centre); six combining a sports hall and
leisure centre without a pool; two sports hall and boxing centres; an athletics stadium
and fitness centre; a water sports centre; a rowing centre; and an all weather sports
centre. For survey photographs of the leisure centre exteriors see Appendix K.
By conditioned floor area, the surveyed centres ranged in size from the smallest,
268 m² for the sports field changing rooms at Clontarf, to the largest centre of 4429 m²
for the Ballyfermot Leisure Centre.
The main findings of the surveys are summarised as follows:
• With one exception, no on-site monitoring of any kind was noted at any of the
centres. No automated collection of data from interval metering or sub-metering
is occurring even in large centres with Building Management Systems.
• As far as could be established, manual collection of meter readings is only
occurring at Poppintree Leisure Centre, where the Duty Officer, who has an
interest in energy management and the potential for cost saving, has been noting
50
weekly electricity and gas meter readings since May 2010. These have been
entered in a spreadsheet to log readings and enable monitoring of energy use.
• All energy bills go directly to the Finance Office for payment so the leisure
centre managers are usually unaware of billed current and past energy costs or
consumption. The lack of on-site monitoring means that bills cannot be checked
against past meter readings.
• There are heating and ventilation problems in many of the centres. Windows are
often opened, particularly in gyms to aid ventilation, but were observed
remaining open on cold days when the heating is on.
• During the survey, lights in rooms with many lamps were seen left on when the
room was unoccupied or when daylight levels were more than high enough for
them to be switched off, including large sports halls. The “Switch off
Campaign”, the behavioural energy saving initiative was not evident in the
centres.
• The older swimming pools (Coolock, Crumlin and Sean McDermott Street) all
suffer from very poor building fabric and out-dated ventilation systems with
either only supply air or ineffective dehumidification.
• DCC does not own Coolock Swimming Pool, located on the top of the Northside
Shopping Centre, but DCC pay for its use and its energy usage. It is an
exceptionally poor building with single glazed windows throughout, uninsulated
concrete walls, poor ventilation (no extract air), moisture problems and very
poor air-sealing.
• A predominant view from staff comments was that energy management equates
primarily to on-going maintenance of boilers and HVAC systems by outside
contractors or of lighting replacement by DCC buildings maintenance staff. The
51
interrelationship of the staff and users with the building is not clearly defined as
an important part of leisure centre energy management.
• Crumlin is scheduled for renovation due to a leaking roof having been under
threat of closure. It has poor comfort levels due to un-insulated masonry walls,
very high heat loss due to two large extractor fans, one in each end wall and, as
at Coolock, noticeably cold entrance lobby areas.
• Sean McDermott Street Pool shows similar problems. Severe moisture damage
to the roof, because of poor ventilation, had closed the gallery area.
• The older pools have recently installed new pool covers to reduce evaporative
heat loss during closed periods. Crumlin and Sean McDermott now have new
heat exchangers to heat the pool water more efficiently.
• Most buildings have well insulated distribution pipes, but deteriorating or
missing insulation was seen on some pipes and hot water tanks in older centres.
In Aughrim Street, a hot water tank was found to be entirely unlagged.
• In the large centres, Ballymun, Finglas and Ballyfermot, the plant room is distant
from Reception or the Manager's office and the BMS laptop is not easily
available for daily or weekly timetable matching to the bookings.
• Two leisure centres, Finglas and Ballyfermot have Central Heat and Power
(CHP) units. These were both working during 2010, but the one at Ballyfermot
is not now working because of a failed turbine for which a replacement part is
not available, due to the manufacturer going out of business.
• Ballyfermot Leisure Centre has a design issue in that the swimming pool area is
open to the changing area, which in turn has a weight training gym above it, so
heat and moisture from the pool affect the gym requiring additional ventilation.
52
Energy saving recommendations were made in the survey report’s conclusions
(see Appendix D) covering lighting, area and specific buildings. They were divided
into low, medium and high impact; and low, medium and high cost.
4.2 Leisure Centre Area and Billing Data
The measured and collected data with calculated provisional DEC ratings are
shown in Table 4.1. Grey cells indicate billing data for 2010 that was unavailable as at
June 2012. Glin Road was assigned a G-rating because the oil consumption could not
be accurately estimated. Markiewicz Swimming Pool shares its gas supply meter with
the building above it so the data may well be inaccurate in application to the leisure area
alone. The heated or conditioned area is shown in the table although the unconditioned
area was also measured. In most centres the unconditioned area is mostly plant rooms
and storage, but at Ballymun there is a large underground car park.
Table 4.1 Leisure Centre Energy Data, Measured Area and DEC Rating
53
4.3 Leisure Centre Energy Data Analysis
For each of the 19 centres there is an electricity bill and a bill for thermal energy
(all gas with the exception of Glin Road Sports Centre, which is heated with oil) giving
38 bills in total. By June 2012, 15 of these bills, as shown in Table 4, still remained
unavailable from the energy suppliers for use in energy accounting by Codema and the
Leisure Centres.
Hard copy bills with the consumption figures are available in the DCC Finance
Office but they are logistically very difficult to locate and analyse. Any one building’s
usage would have to found within a long list from the same supplier and the data may
not be easy to collate. There are also different suppliers each with different reporting
formats.
As of September 2012, Codema had billing information for 2011 as well as 2010.
Data remaining absent from the Codema database as of September 2011 included: for
2010, five electricity bills and eight gas bills remained unknown; for 2011, three
electricity bills and four gas bills were missing (Codema, pc).
The incomplete data for energy usage, due to missing bills, is noted by text in
Figures 4.1 and 4.2.
54
Figure 4.1 Total Energy Usage of DCC Leisure Centres
Figure 4.1 shows the total energy use and Figure 4.2 shows the energy use per
square meter (EUI) for the surveyed leisure centres.
Figure 4.2 Energy Utilisation Index for DCC Leisure Centres
55
Figure 4.3 2010 and 2011 Total Energy Cost versus Energy Cost Index.
Arrows in Figure 4.3 indicate change in costs from 2010 to 2011 for individual
named leisure centres. Points for centres with lower energy use are not named and
those missing data are omitted.
56
CHAPTER 5 DOCUMENT ANALYSIS
5.1 Findings: Analysis of Documents
5.1.1 Description of Application Form
The BEW Application Form is in Appendix G.
The Form (DCC, 2012c) details upgrade projects proposed for four buildings with
sixteen separate 'Sub-Projects' (SPs) each individually numbered 1 to 16 (referred to
below as SP1-16). The SPs included: eight for Ballyfermot Library, four for Kevin
Street Library, and two each for Crumlin and Sean McDermott Street Swimming Pools.
The total energy consumption and cost figures for each building are given first, using
2010 figures with the predicted building savings given as the total of each building's SP
savings.
Each building is described separately with a tabled listing of its SPs giving a
description of each retrofit and the predicted electrical or thermal savings in kWh for
each. Each SP is then detailed briefly giving a Project total cost figure (including new
equipment cost and installation cost including labour), the predicted annual savings in
euro and the simple payback in years. None of the boxes available to fill in for the NPV
and IRR of the SP were filled in on this particular application.
An excerpt from the DCC BEW Application is shown in Figure 5.1.
57
Figure 5.1 Excerpt from DCC BEW Application showing Sub-Project 1 details.
Spaces below for ‘Assumptions’, ‘Non-Energy Cost Savings’ and ‘Measurement
and Verification Methodology’ are not shown – only the latter was filled in for the sub-
projects.
Additional space for each SP gave space to enter:
• a description of the basis for energy savings;
• all assumptions and associated values used in calculation;
• non-energy cost savings with assumptions on how they are derived;
• measurement and verification details.
In all cases the description of the M&V details were entered, none involving
International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP). In no
cases were any details of the assumptions or values used, or any non-energy cost
savings entered.
From the document, SP descriptions (abridged) and their related data are shown in
Table 5.1
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Table 5.1 Collated Sub-Project Descriptions and Data.
Saving for SP6, in greyed cell, is calculated from the data given.
5.1.2 Findings: Application Guide
A copy of the Application Guide is in Appendix G.
5.1.2.1 Financial Appraisal Method
The Guide (p.7) states that the four criteria for assessment of a BEW application
are: ‘Value for Money’, its benefit in energy, carbon and cost savings relative to its cost
(40); ‘Quality and Delivery’, its demonstration value, replicabilty, and the applicant's
ability to deliver by the deadline (30); ‘Innovation’ in wide application or finance
delivery (15); ‘Jobs Benefit’, the labour-intensity of the project (15). The marks in
brackets are the maximum possible mark that could be allocated during grading by
SEAI. Specifically noted under Value for Money is that:
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Included in the consideration in this category will be the value of the
investment to the State and the quality of financial appraisal of the
project (SEAI, 2012c)
Following grading, the final approval is also noted as being dependent on:
“project payback timeframes”, the market incentive effects and the applicant sector
(commercial, public sector etc.). Although there are boxes on the form for NPV and
IRR there appears to be no mention of either criterion anywhere in the guide. Neither in
the application nor in the guide is there any standard study period, lifecycle or time
horizon on which to judge an investment for an NPV or IRR calculation.
From the above data it can be concluded that the financial appraisal method being
used in assessment and being encouraged by the BEW funding scheme is simple
payback.
5.1.2.2 Investment Appraisal Data
The SP costs identified by the Guide (p.6) as being eligible for inclusion in the
total cost of the measure for grant consideration are restricted to installation costs due to
labour, materials or specialist assistance. Costs not related to energy performance
improvement and on-going monitoring costs are not eligible.
To verify savings, “projects must include an efficient and effective mechanism for
energy use data collection and/or monitoring of the savings” (p.5). Large and complex
projects are encouraged to have IPMVP monitoring. In the Terms and Conditions,
grantees must comply with their commitment to using the mechanism of monitoring
that they specified in the application form, but no penalty for failing to meet the
predicted savings is specified (p.11).
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5.2 Findings: Assess Proposal Data Quality and Relevance
These indicative findings reference the principles stated in the methodology
(Section 3.3.2.2).
In SP1, costing €15,000, the existing electric heating is to be removed and
photovoltaic panels are to be installed with a projected saving of €9,868. Two
measures, one removing an electricity demand and one installing an electricity supply
are thereby included in the same SP. The electricity output of the PV panels is not
given but, in SP9, the installation of PV panels costing €5,500 produces an annual
saving of only €208. Therefore, it appears that in SP1 there must be a large saving
ascribed to the removal of electric heating. However, removal of a heating method does
not provide an alternative investment that results in a savings return. For an investment
appraisal, the incremental saving produced by removing the electric heating is zero.
The cost of removing the electric heating should not be part of an energy investment
appraisal, it should be assigned to renovation costs. Given that the payback for SP9 is
stated as 26 years, it seems likely that the payback for the PV panels in SP1 would be
similar and therefore PV in this case should not be associated with the 2-year payback
given.
The calculated thermal savings shown for SPs 3, 6, 7 and 8, whose savings in heat
for the same building would overlap, may account for their mutual influence, but
without a listing of the assumptions that were made in making the estimates it is not
possible to know.
There appear to be no other SPs that are mutually affecting in a way that might
allow double counting or where the projected savings were unlikely to be only from that
particular SP.
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It is difficult to judge the robustness of the costings and savings from the Form
because all of the boxes for detailing assumptions were left blank giving little
opportunity for checking the assumed data parameters. Calculations for the savings
related to HRV installation at Crumlin made by Temborius (2012) and another SBEM
calculation (see Appendix H) appeared to show markedly lower energy savings than in
the Form, potentially altering the savings data for that case. Similarly the confidence
level for achievement of other projected savings could be questioned but this would
require assumptions to be listed so that they could be checked. The base data for all of
the savings projections was from one year, 2010, a year with 36% fewer 15.5 ºC
Heating Degree Days than 2011 (as calculated from Dublin Airport data, obtained from
BizEE, 2012).
Examining cost and consumption savings provided on the Form for the SPs in
Table 5, there are inconsistencies in the implicit values of gas and electricity in cost per
kWh. It is not clear why this would be the case as there should, presumably, be only
one value assumed for each for a particular building.
5.3 Analysis: Comparing Appraisal Method Alternatives
This Section's results relate to the methodology described in Section 3.3.2.3. As
noted above, there were inconsistencies found in the implicit costs given for gas and
electricity. For this hypothetical comparison of appraisal method alternatives it was
essential to begin with consistent data to give an informative comparison. To enable
this comparison, electricity was given a cost of 17 cent per kWh and gas a cost of 5 cent
per kWh. Table 5.2 shows the full costs, as before, with the annualised savings
normalised using these energy cost figures. This is the data used to make the
comparisons illustrated in this section.
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Table 5.2 Data used in appraisal comparison.
Annual saving figures normalised by using set cost per kWh for gas and for electricity.
Figure 5.2 shows the simple payback in years for the 16 projects. The shortest
bars appear best in this appraisal as being the projects with the shortest paybacks. In the
Guide and Form no accept/reject level was given, but a line for the 15-year study
period, as used for the other appraisal calculations, is drawn in the chart.
Figure 5.2 Simple Payback in Years for the 16 Projects.
Figure 5.3 shows the NPVs for the measures, yielding a different view of the
appraisal. Marginally negative, unprofitable NPVs, as indicated by grey bars, are found
for SPs 2,4,8,9,11. Four of the SPs, 1,3,13,15, have NPVs greater than €85,000. The
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two HRVs, SP13 and SP15, are found to have NPVs of €280,000. The remaining five
positive NPV projects have NPVs of less than €20,000.
Figure 5.3 Net Present Values for the 16 Projects.
Figure 5.4 charts the Profitability Index, also called Benefit to Cost ratio (BCR).
PIs of under one (indicating unprofitability) are indicated in grey – the same five of the
projects as for NPV.
Figure 5.4 Profitability Indexes for the 16 projects.
Combining the PI values and NPVs on one scatter chart of the projects gives
Figure 5.5. The base data is the same as that charted in Figures 5.3 and 5.4. This chart
shows that while projects 13 and 15 are forecast to have very high NPVs, project 1
provides a higher return per euro invested. Of the 16 projects, 11 of them can be seen to
have financially marginally positive or marginally negative profitability.
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Figure 5.5 Profitability Index versus Net Present Value for the 16 projects
Figure 5.6 shows the effective cost of energy after retrofit (ECER) with €1 being
set as the reference present cost (also called the ‘cost to avoid’). Grey bars indicate that
the energy cost after retrofit is effectively more expensive than before retrofit,
indicating rejection of the measure in this appraisal method. Again this method
produces the same accept/reject results as for NPV and PI. As noted previously, this
appraisal is an annualised PI method.
Figure 5.6 Energy cost after Retrofit compared to present cost.
Figure 5.7 shows the project value for money as appraised by the profitability
index method used in Denmark for assessing retrofits. Lifetimes are assigned to each
project based on service lifetimes that are weighted according to the type of measure as
directed in Aggerholm (2011).
65
Figure 5.7 Danish Appraisal Method Profitability Index
Figure 5.8 shows the rankings of the different appraisal methods to gauge
differences between the alternative methods. For each project the ranking given by each
appraisal is shown in the order: Simple payback, NPV, PI, ECER and Danish PI
Method. Tallest bars indicate the best ranking out of 16 given by the particular
appraisal for the 16 projects, and the shorter the bars the lower the rankings.
In terms of ranking measures, PI and ECER are shown to be the same throughout,
as ECER is an annualised PI. The Simple Payback, NPV, PI and ECER methods all
produce very similar rankings of the measures, differing by a maximum of two ranking
places. The Danish method, which uses different study periods for different classes of
measure, produces markedly different rankings, increasing rankings for insulation,
glazing and lighting, and decreasing rankings for fan and electric upgrades (allowing for
earlier technology failure relative to more passive measures).
Measures rejected by a particular appraisal are marked with a diamond below the
relevant bar. The NPV, PI and ECER methods all reject the same projects because they
have the same basis. Simple payback, if given a 15 year maximum as a rejection level,
the study period for the previous methods, rejects one measure that the others do not,
and accepts two projects rejected by NPV, PI and ECER. Given the weighted service
lifetimes assigned, the Danish Method only rejects two measures, those with a PI of less
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than 1.33, indicating that almost all of the measures are sufficiently profitable that in
Denmark it would be required that they be carried out.
Figure 5.8 Comparison of rankings by different appraisals methods.
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CHAPTER 6 IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS
6.1 Interview Findings: Data Location and Citation Format
All of the interview transcripts are located in Volume 2 of the dissertation. Each
transcript is printed as a Word document with the view set to 'Final Showing Markup'
mode thereby showing the sequentially numbered comment boxes that contain the
EMM coding made and a short comment relating to the response identified.
Specific comments are referenced in this chapter’s findings by interview number
and comment number so that they can be readily located in Volume 2. For example, a
response identified in ‘Interview 9’ by ‘Comment 78’ is cited as (9:78). If responses
discussed below in the findings are not part of or immediately adjacent to a numbered
comment, the transcript reference is cited as being between two numbered comments as
in (4:35-36). In some cases clarifications or additional information was sought from
interviewees as personal communication after the interview and allocated the code
(6:pc).
As noted previously the average level of attainment for each category is on a zero
(very poor) to four (very good) indicative scale.
6.2 Interview Findings: By Coded EMM category
6.2.1 Energy Policy (EP)
Very few codings were made (19 in all), evenly split between Europe, National
and Local, were made for this category limiting its findings (see Section 6.3). In part,
this was because few respondents gave clear responses indicating any focus beyond the
headline targets.
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6.2.1.1 European Level
A lack of clear, long-term European and National targets beyond 2020 and toward
2050 was mentioned (1:14; 10:22). The strongly stated, but not binding, energy-saving
target (2:4) and legally binding emissions targets mandated by the ESD and EPBD
European Directives and agreed to by Ireland was noted (2:10 and also 3:39). Member
States and vested interests appear to have watered down the potential impact of the new
EED that was to have addressed the shortfall in progress toward the energy-saving
target (2:10; 2:6).
6.2.1.2 National Level
At national level, policy objectives are strongly stated, though water and public
lighting are elements currently overlooked by national policy (2:69; see also 9:79).
Water is now beginning to be addressed by SEAI working in coordination with the
CCMA (11:1). The declared policy aim in social housing is to upgrade them to a C1
rating but even before recent cuts in funding the likely outlook was that this would take
15 to 20 years so the target is much more distant now (7:17).
6.2.1.3 Local Level
In local authorities, a lower EMM attainment level of stated energy policy is
indicated by the responses. Noting current funding restrictions, an absence of set
enforced policy targets for local authorities and their departments was reported (3:25;
10:63-64,76). Doubt that the targets can be met, except due to economic recession, was
expressed, for example one respondent said:
Theoretically, we are supposed to be saving 20% by 2020, the public
sector was to save 33%. I do not know how. In a way we have been
saved by the downturn because everything has caved in. (10:74)
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Local energy action plans do exist though not in every authority (2:14). Dublin’s
Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP) has been published but the DCC Housing
Energy Action Plan remains unpublished despite much work (10:21; 10:20). The
unclear housing policy means that retrofit projects are set up in an ad hoc rather than a
systemised manner by motivated individuals who work to establish individual projects
(10:10).
The seven sustainability themes of the Dublin Fire Brigade Green Plan, each with
results-based, sustainability objectives, are identified by Neil McCabe as critical to its
success, and to its adoption by DFB as their business plan this year (13:4; 13:3). From
now on, all decisions made by DFB will be framed by the Green Plan's themes and
objectives.
6.2.2 Energy Management Structure (MS)
MS codings were made when respondents referred to upper management buy-in,
energy management systems, communication, or responsibility of delegation of energy
matters. For the MS category, 87 scored codings were made with an average attainment
level of 1 and 2 respectively for National and Local levels (see Section 6.3). The mode
value was 1 in each case.
6.2.2.1 European Level
Highly departmentalised systems are evident at every level of governance creating
problems in setting up energy management structures due to ‘silo thinking’ and actions
restricting integrated communication (2:25,27). In Europe, Directorates General for
Climate, Environment, Energy and Agriculture all look at energy and emissions policy
separately and largely communicate with the corresponding departments in Member
States (2:70).
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6.2.2.2 National to Local Level
In Ireland, Departments and public sector bodies are often isolated from one
another (2:26) with departmentalised, silo thinking (11:27). There are also challenges
for Departments and SEAI in addressing energy management issues in the local
authorities due to the high degree of complexity in intermediate, local authority
administrative structures relating to energy (11:2,11:6). These can be addressed well on
a single-issue basis over time as, for example, in SEAI/CCMA work on water services
currently (11:1). Requirements, such as Display Energy Certificates are not being
complied with; they are not being checked by government agencies so they are not a
priority (8:28). The DECLG are overseeing funded-retrofit works on social housing to
ensure the limited funding (2:42) is well spent (7:11), but frequent meetings take place
between the DECLG and Local Authority architects (3:31; 7:24,25,26,33) that can delay
projects (2:44; 7:37) because negotiations often progress slowly (2:46) by being
“presented in a case by case fashion” (3:31) or by persuasion on a “case by case basis”
(10:43).
The National Procurement Service, which puts out tenders for local authority
energy supply, may lack the power or authority to press suppliers to meet public sector
energy management data requirements (9:87).
6.2.2.3 Local Level – Energy Management Engagement
Local authority energy management structures are at an early stage of
development (9:76; 11:67) and more integrated structures are needed to manage energy
at every level (12:27). Irish cities and counties have highly varied forms of energy
agency that have many different organisational models. There are small 'in-house'
‘agencies’ like the two person one in Co. Kerry (11:7); the not-for-profit Codema in
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Dublin (that is not an integrated part of DCC) (8:42), and Tipperary agencies; some of
which have closed down due to spending cuts, as in Meath (11:9); and there are some
areas without any energy agency. Across Europe, local energy agencies find it difficult
to establish effectiveness in improving public sector energy management (2:36).
SDCC have engaged with SEAI Energy MAP for four years (9:7) and DLRCC
have had an Energy Team for two years (3:1,5). In each of these counties, the County
Architects have the title of Energy Champion (3:1; 9:1). Though SDCC is now actively
addressing energy and emissions saving, previous efforts and reports have been sporadic
and the results have not been widely disseminated (9:76).
As energy costs have increased, management buy-in to energy concerns has also
begun to increase (8:40, 9:78). Dublin City has shown strong support for the Green
Plan work of Neil McCabe (13:2) but they have yet to engage with Energy MAP on any
scale (8:pc.) and there appears to be limited upper management drive for energy and
emissions savings (5:8,28; 6:41; 10:43; 12:37). DCC is an older and larger organisation
and less easy to change compared to younger authorities like SDCC and DLRCC (8:30).
6.2.2.4 Local Level – Communications, Data and Technical Knowledge
Good communications between and within DCC departments on energy matters
were mentioned (4:24; 6:1), but generally systems for good communication on energy
matters were frequently noted as deficient or lacking (2:24; 3:9; 4:7,11,34; 10:10,18,68;
12:2). Some good examples of energy management were mentioned, as shown by the
accessibility of DCC energy usage data on-line at www.dublinked.ie (6:12). SDCC are
similarly working on energy information transparency with a new website at
www.southdublinenergy.ie (9:66). Lack of technical skills (4:4), lack of time (4:6) or
resources (6:20,24), and limited authority for action (4:6; 6:2) were all cited as
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management difficulties in delaying or preventing energy-related decision-making. A
reliance on key personnel with a deeper knowledge of energy management issues whose
expertise may be lost to organisations when they move position or retire was mentioned
in DCC (6:7,8,29,40). This was also noted in Irish local authorities generally as a
current problem due to many retirements (11:17). A move to systemise knowledge has
occurred in SDCC in the technical retraining of staff to be able to undertake BERs and
assess retrofit possibilities (9:49).
A breakdown in ‘partnership’ between management, unions and staff within DFB,
initially made communicating the Green Plan very difficult and took three years to
overcome (13:14).
6.2.3 Implementation and Motivation (IM)
IM codings were made when respondents referred to the current degree of
motivation toward achieving the policy objectives and the current level of energy
management commitment. As in the EMM isolated or sporadic results were seen in the
grading as indicating piecemeal approaches, even where positive. For the IM category,
247 scored codings were made with an average attainment level of 2 for both National
and Local levels (see Section 6.3). However, the mode was 1 in each case.
6.2.3.1 European Level
European Union projects continue to support energy-efficiency programmes in
Ireland. The Minus 3% project, led by Codema in Dublin (2:19) tested the potential for
3% annual energy savings and achieved the target in the test year of 2011, reaching 6%
savings (using modelled rather than measured and verified results). Another EU
project, 'Re-Green’, though it is more about energy than other sustainability concerns
such as water and waste, is a current InterReg 4, EU programme that DCC Architects
73
are engaging with currently, primarily with the aim of looking at their housing stock
(10:1,2). The level of deep building retrofit varies around Europe with exemplars being
Germany, which has a large number of external cladding projects, and the Nordic
countries, where there is large-scale use of district heating (2:52). In general, the
implementation of energy management all over Europe and at different governance
levels has had inadequate results:
I would not point the finger at anybody, there are a lot of good people at
local, national and European level, all in a way trying to do something
good but somehow it is not fully connecting. We all have to put up our
hands and say we could do better. (2:61)
6.2.3.2 National Level
Nationally, there are programmes aiming to implement policy such as: the
DECLG funded energy retrofit programme (7:1,3,40), with an aspirational target of
raising all social housing to a C1 BER rating (7:4,5); and the SEAI-administered Better
Energy Workplaces grant scheme, assisting local authorities to meet their 'glide-path’ to
the target from a defined baseline (11:26).
The DECLG programme's annual funding continues to be severely cut with a 58%
cut over the last two years – from €43 million in 2010 to €34 million in 2011, and down
to €18 million this year (7:3). Although limited in scope (7:8,15; 10:27) and only
funding the ‘voids’ (social housing units that become vacant), the DECLG programme
implements a policy of not re-renting F- and G- rated houses (7:29; 10:32). One result
of only doing voids is a lottery effect in that one tenant might get an C-rated dwelling
next to still-occupied G-rated ones for the same rent (7:17). For larger retrofit or new-
build projects, DCC and other local authorities rely on specific negotiated monies or
74
have to bid for funds from Government grant schemes from multiple funding routes
(7:16), rather than budgeting from their own funding as a result of the highly centralised
form of governance in Ireland (10:46, also 2:47).
SEAI have developed Energy MAP to engage the private and public sectors in
their own programmes of energy management change (11:10) and so far about 21 or 22
of the 34 local authorities have engaged with it (11:12). Efforts to involve energy
suppliers (“obligated parties”, see 11:48) are beginning. They are being linked on-line
to local authorities as possible ESCo service providers through “EnergyLink” (11:16)
although this process is at an early stage (2:64; 10:6). The ISO 50001 international
standard of energy management, only currently used by UCC and the Defence Forces, is
seen as an exemplar level that bodies completing Energy MAP can aspire to (11:11).
Energy saving or cost saving, rather than carbon saving, are very much the focus
of current efforts by government (7:30; 1:18; 9:10,73). There are no implemented
carbon commitments as there are in the UK (9:52) despite the latest forecasts showing
that the emissions targets will be missed (2:10,11). An absence of enforced carbon
targets reduces the level of ‘push’ on public sector bodies (1:10; 9:53,54) but energy
costs are becoming a strong driver for savings, due more to the economic downturn than
to policy implementation (9:74). There is some doubt as to whether the EN1 form for
reporting energy consumption is now required by DECLG (5:41).
In Ireland, a past tendency to focus on technological pilot projects can be
identified, often additionally pushed by grants (9:93). A 'fabric-first’ approach, using
passive insulation and air-sealing measures, would be more robust in the long-term
(1:20; 9:94). There have been high achieving, local authority area retrofit projects,
notably in Tralee (7:35; 9:90,91) and Dundalk (10:8), though not on a broad scale
(1:11,12). Kerry County Council are noted as having done very well in having
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retrofitted most of their vacant stock and are now looking at retrofitting a number of
estates following on from the finished project in Tralee (7:36). Generally, the work in
Tralee has been practically focused on establishing a "virtuous circle”, motivating local
people, creating local employment and implementing behavioural as well as technical
solutions (9:92). In the public sector, the OPW have now installed building monitoring
in many of their buildings (11:21) as well as a ‘bureau-style’ technical service, so that
motivated building managers and users can call for energy saving advice, yielding high
returns in savings at low cost (11:25).
6.2.3.3 Local Level: Organisational Motivation and Change
In local authorities currently, motivation toward energy savings is affected by
poor billing and meter data, making it difficult to confirm usage if unexpectedly high
bills are received (4:12; 6:12).
Codema, as the energy agency for Dublin City, are assembling a Microsoft
Access-based database of all Dublin City energy accounts keyed by unique location
numbers, accessibly storing information from energy bills and surveys of buildings
(8:11,13,20). It is a complex undertaking requiring large amounts of data collection and
checking (8:20,46). Codema's survey audits are continuing and to date these have
proceeded by building type: Fire Stations (13:42), Libraries, Depots, Motor Tax Offices
and Leisure Centres (8:11). They are also surveying buildings for SDCC (9:19) and
Fingal County Council, and the plan is to ultimately survey all council buildings
regardless of size (8:9). Students on work placement have been undertaking these
surveys (8:8) but the aim is to have a graduate engineer for future surveys so that the
DEC ratings produced can be officially certified (8:10). Codema’s aim is to work “from
the ground up” when working with DCC departments on energy projects rather than
from a position of authority (8:43). Codema were described, uncertainly, as a source of
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energy saving initiatives (6:33) and information (13:34,35,36), but their resources and
scope were described as somewhat limited (9:81; 10:44).
In the manager in overall charge of DCC Leisure Centre,, out of his own personal
interest, has been attending a three-day energy management workshop (4:4-5).
In SDCC, there is a monthly meeting of a committee looking at energy efficiency
(9:20). A register of energy saving opportunities has been produced (9:18), and a heat
map of Tallaght is being used to identify supply and demand for assessment of district
heating potential (9:26). The county has a total housing stock of 9,200 houses and two
areas of social housing, North Clondalkin and West Tallaght, which have been
categorised as suffering from deprivation (9:4). Before the economic crisis of 2007-8,
the SDCC annual capital budget was about €60 million and many new civic buildings
including leisure centres were built. After 2008, with little new work in prospect, the
county's clerks of works were retrained as BER assessors (9:11) looking toward
retrofitting of buildings. Having carried out many BERs and cross-referencing with
published [SEAI] information, it is expected that within about six months there will be a
better understanding of the BER-rating spread of the housing stock (9:34,36). The aim
is to go beyond retrofitting alone, to increase the information circulation and reduce fuel
poverty (9:37).
In Dun Laoghaire, a steep learning curve was noted as being required to track
down consumption and cost for individual properties, using bills and collected meter
numbers (3:4). In the Dublin area, the amount of significant retrofit, other than social
housing void upgrades, has decreased to a low level with only a few projects being
mentioned (2:65; 5:39; 10:3,4,30).
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6.2.3.4 Local Level: Motivating Behavioural Change
Responses did not indicate that any results-based behavioural change programmes
within departments other than Codema’s Switch-Off Campaign were occurring or
planned. Nevertheless, motivating behavioural change was mentioned by several
respondents as being important in addressing change toward good energy management,
for example:
Who decides what the level of the bill is; it is really the staff (12:14)
In all three authorities, public awareness (9:66,67) and communication with the
residents of retrofit projects was identified as important, both in the retrofit process and
in understanding monitoring or use after retrofit (3:17; 9:37; 10:62). Similarly,
motivating staff to save energy is seen as very important (3:6; 12:4,35; 13:8) and
Codema's Switch-Off Campaign was mentioned (2:20; 3:6; 5:31). However, outside
DFB, implementing behavioural change was reported as being difficult (9:77) or slow
(12:24,25). There have been a number of significant difficulties, particularly a lack of
readily available behavioural or technical advice (4:29,32,35,43; 9:69; 10:81; 11:41;
12:36) but there are no plans to extend the OPW's so-called bureau-style technical
advice service because of cost constraints (11:22). ESCos could provide such a service
in future as part of their contract, if the ESCo funding model becomes more commonly
used (11:41).
One respondent identified self-motivation, obligation and incentives as
alternatives for motivating behavioural change (12:29). Obligation was identified as an
important driver (10:77; 12:6,7) needing firm policy requirements; and the possibility of
financial incentives was mentioned – possibly part of the savings might clearly be
identified as then going toward improving the facility where staff work (12:30).
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In DFB, after spending two years developing the Green Plan in his spare time
(13:1), Neil McCabe identified community-linked behavioural change as a core,
ethically and morally motivated principle (13:18,45) to be additionally motivated by
intentionally visual projects in the initial phase at Kilbarrack (13:17):
Everyone talks about the technology I have invested in but the reality is
that I did everything else first. When I had the behavioural side changed,
the renewables side of it was as a solution, and not as individual
products (13:45).
McCabe has written extensive guidance documents for DFB advising on behavioural,
technical and procurement management (13:22).
The term ‘energy champion’ was used in different ways by different respondents.
In South Dublin and Dún Laoghaire, interviewees immediately volunteered it as a
particular upper managerial position (3:1; 9:1). The local example of Cormac Healy at
Poppintree (12:15,31) was identified as a possible precedent for establishing each of the
leisure centre managers as a local energy champion (4:5). A view from two respondents
was that, although locally valuable and highly motivated, local energy champions and
projects usually have a very limited overall effect in comparison to improvements made
in wider scale management structures and programmes (2:65; 11:66).
In the locally instigated project at Kilbarrack the firefighters are leading both
organisational and community change (13:3,13) benefiting from Neil McCabe’s Green
Plan work and guidance. One respondent said of McCabe:
He is a great genius in his own way. He has a very clear, simple
understanding of what has to happen. It is an amazing achievement
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starting with one guy. The way he has brought in older retired guys and
local children; he has an innate understanding of sustainability (9:89)
6.2.3.5 Local Level: Retrofitting
Technical guidance for retrofits is about to be published by the DECLG (1:17;
10:26). Retrofits need to be deep to avoid having to revisit the building (1:16) and are
best achieved on an area basis (1:16) as in the exemplar case of Tralee (7:35; 11:7).
Area retrofit is at very early stage of consideration in Dublin City (10:19). Detailed
technical reports have been made from past projects on how to make savings, like that
for the Minus 3% project (2:16).
Dublin’s council areas differ in their history and building mix: Dublin City and
Dún Laoghaire have older buildings compared to South Dublin and Fingal which
generally have newer civic buildings and housing (9:64).
SDCC are looking at the potential for district heating and CHP in Tallaght
utilising, and potentially linking, the heating and cooling loads of the Civic Offices, the
Square shopping centre, Goodmans food, the hospital and likewise in large data centres,
possibly by means of a council-run ESCo (9:26-27). The facilities manager in the DCC
Civic Offices is making progress toward re-instating rainwater harvesting and installing
photovoltaics (10:67).
In the leisure centres, the ease of access to building controls was stressed. All
main lighting switches are ideally located at reception (12:34) and BMS control laptops
have to be easily accessible to facility managers, so that they are easy to use to match
heating to timetabled room usage – currently they are not easily accessible in some
centres (12:5).
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A slow pace of retrofit was described in Dublin City (7:37) although deeper
retrofit is designed in where possible (10:45). Given the history of new-build projects,
there is a relative lack of retrofit experience among City Architects (10:47) and a lack of
in-house technical knowledge of retrofit analysis software (10:54). Expert retrofit
analytical advice was sought for retrofit design in pre-crisis years, as on the Glover
Court’s gullwing flats, but is now less likely to be engaged due to cost constraints
(10:60) though it may be needed (10:53). This is also the case in SDCC (9:69).
Piecemeal measures such as drylining of individual units in retrofitting terraces and flats
were identified as normal current practice (7:19,28; 10:52,60), even though the
knowledge that external insulation was a preferable and superior retrofit solution was
clearly stated by respondents (7:19,36-37; 10:29,50).
Lack of funding (10:30-31) and lack of motivation (7:37) were both cited as
reasons for not cladding externally – for example on apartment blocks like the 'gullwing'
apartments and Dolphin's Barn's flats. In Dolphin House flats, there may be a slightly
increased risk of condensation in the un-retrofitted flat neighbouring a flat that is
retrofitted with internal insulation, due to a cooler shared internal wall junction with the
exterior wall (10:53). Glasgow was able to carry out external insulation on a large scale
(7:37-38) despite tenancy-ownership issues. This would not be an issue in Ireland
because local authority apartment buildings are fully owned by the local authorities
simplifying such a potential program of external cladding (7:39). A need to identify
durable, technical solutions for active measures in houses like fans, vents or heat
recovery ventilation was expressed (9:40), with the proviso that they all require regular
maintenance, filter changes and inspection. For social housing though, these could be
combined with the annual boiler and smoke detector inspections (9:39).
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In DFB the technical experience gained by the Green Plan has included research
into the component parts of technical retrofit measures providing investment data on
facts, prices, carbon emissions, and water and energy reduction. (13:21). A trial of new
technology affecting the DFB fleet has been implemented that is likely to yield savings
of 11% in fuel and 19% in carbon emissions (13:36).
6.2.3.6 Local Level: Management Commitment and Funding Potential
Energy costs are becoming a driver for upper management to buy in to changes
toward energy management (5:36; 9:50,54) as financial resources have reduced.
Generally though, public buildings and housing have been worked on as they are seen
as needing repair, with some energy upgrading, but not with a management or funding
commitment to longer term, deeper or rolling retrofit solutions (2:54). Operational
budget reductions are now restricting implementation of energy measures such as
monitoring and energy usage audits and surveys (4:21; 9:48). However, SEAI are
pushing for more audited measurement and verification in future (11:37). Councils rely
on European and Government funding for their energy programmes such as LEAP, Re-
Green, the Sustainable Energy Community Programme, as they do for supplementary
programme funding generally (9:67).
The economic downturn has led to an even slower rate of building replacement
and retrofit in the local authorities (9:31; 10:83). The need for savings has led to
decreases in energy use but only at about the same rate as energy costs are rising, so the
overall bill has remained much the same (5:33). Grants like those from SEAI can only
provide 'pump-priming' (2:50; 10:36) and application preparation times may be large in
proportion to the small amounts of grant funding available relative to overall council
budgets (11:42).
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SDCC have found that promised grant funding from SEAI can be very slow to
arrive, delaying implementation of measures (10:55) and grant application and closing
deadlines cause significant implementation difficulties (9:56).
The market for private funding for public retrofit or energy management is at an
early stage of development (10:9; 11:18) because there is a lack of expertise in
investment assessment leading to management uncertainty over the potential gains
(11:64). DCC have been talking with an investment company to establish an energy
investment fund, but as yet no clear timeline has been set for it to proceed (10:40).
Moves toward involving energy suppliers are not yet underway either (10:17).
One respondent described motivation of the public sector toward achieving the
33% energy savings as poor:
They have not really started the road map to actually achieve it. It is just
a figure, there has been no real effort put into how they are going to do
it. (1:10)
6.2.4 Investment and Cost Analysis (CA)
CA codings were made when respondents referred to the current budget
constraints, retrofit planning, grant funding or investment cost analysis methods that
affect the future usage of energy or emissions of carbon dioxide. As in the EMM,
energy cost control concentrating on price alone, on low cost/fast payback requirements,
or using simple payback appraisals, were ranked less highly than cost control and
planning using on-going portfolio and integrated investment appraisals that rely on
rationally-decided, value-driven objectives. Isolated or sporadic results, even if good,
were seen in this grading as indicating piecemeal approaches.
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For the CA category, 135 scored codings were made with a low average
attainment level of 1 for both National and Local levels (see Section 6.3). The mode
value was 1 in each case.
6.2.4.1 Budget constraints
Public sector budgets in Ireland largely rely on single financial year accounting,
restricting all government bodies to spending only the monies allocated for the current
year (2:57; 11:43). Such constrained grants militate against longer term, deep retrofit
projects (2:58). Larger building and infrastructure projects often have five-year capital
budgets, but there are currently few such projects occurring (3:10; 5:37) and these are
not commonly used for retrofit projects (5:38). Capital budgets are held separate from
current spending and any savings made in a year’s current spending budget must be
spent by the end of the year, they cannot be ring-fenced to provide future capital or
operational spending (10:72). Illustrating this, a DCC community centre was built for
€3.5 million and the capital was found with little difficulty, but the annual operating
cost of €300,000 was much more difficult to agree (10:73).
Local authority accounts are monitored on a quarterly basis, to be scrutinised by
the DECLG, and also now for the IMF (5:32). Current spending is consequently highly
restricted (6:37). For SDCC, this year's current funding from the DECLG was reduced
in August by €1.9 million because of a shortfall in household charge collection, which
will have to be saved out of the remaining operating budget by November (9:60). This
effectively stopped all maintenance operations and reduce the scale of individual
retrofitting. DECLG have told SDCC to cut re-wiring from standard refurbishment
works as a result of the funding cuts (9:61,62).
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Dublin did have household rates previously until rates were abolished in 1987
(2:49) but a large part of the income for Irish local authorities now comes from rental
and grant monies (7:38). Before the financial crisis revenues from new build site fees
were large (2:49-50). Money was also brought in from selling housing, and in DCC this
was largely spent on housing refurbishment but this revenue source is now closed
(10:38). The financial situation means that very little borrowing is currently occurring
and relatively few capital projects are now in progress (5:40). Local authorities often
have to be creative to obtain funds, bidding in combination with other groups to meet
partnership rules for particular programmes (9:41). Sourcing funding for the authorities
can be complex, flowing from different government departments and through schemes
that change on an annual basis (2:48; 10:14).
In other countries, local authorities have more control over their own budgets, for
example:
In Birmingham [recent winner of the World Green Building Council
award], they have their own budgets that they can allocate; the problem
here is that the local authorities cannot and that is the big problem in
Ireland. The local authorities only have the discretion to bring forward
projects that are then dependent on the approval of the Department of
Environment to carry them through (1:9)
In Dublin City, the energy spend in 2006 was €22 million (Minus 3% project
figures) including water and public lighting (8:1). Within DCC the staff and running
costs for each building are allocated to a 'cost centre' in the accounts (5:3). Department
managers are responsible for their own cost centres, so they have to monitor and control
their own costs including energy costs (5:8) though they may find it difficult for energy
usage in the absence of billed consumption to check the costs incurred (4:10).
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For the leisure centres, the yearly operating budget is for daily running costs and
if unexpectedly large costs arise they have to be saved within in that budget (4:20). The
budget has become tighter in the recent years so that adding to sinking funds (making
savings from the current year to allow for eventualities next year) is very difficult: “it is
done almost in error rather than in a planned way” (4:20, see also 9:59). A recent large
cost was receiving an unexpected arrears bill for €50,000 from an energy supplier, this
amount then immediately being taken out of the cost centre account for Ballymun
Leisure Centre. Due to the hard copy bill being in the Finance Office and being time-
consuming to locate and read, it has been difficult to substantiate the related
consumption (4:17,46,47; see also 2:35).
Tight departmental annual budgets mean that monies, and technical or investment
appraisal advice, are not available, even for low cost retrofit upgrades which are
sometimes offered by suppliers at low or no initial cost on an ESCo basis with
guaranteed overall savings compared to current energy bills (4:25,26).
6.2.4.2 Retrofit Planning and Funding
Since the 1990s, larger social housing upgrade programmes in Ireland, funded by
Government grant aid, have been carried out by local authorities installing particular
measures in schemes including replacement windows, draught stripping, and attic
insulation (9:28,29). It can be difficult now to identify the houses where this has been
done and efforts are being made to map past retrofits to establish which measures were
installed where (9:30).
Despite the government energy and emission targets, the diminishing budgets
available from the DECLG and from the DCENR through SEAI for retrofitting are
likely to greatly restrict progress toward achieving them (7:21,32). The limited funding
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available for social housing (7:8,15) means that a programme of large scale retrofit will
not occur in the current budget environment (7:28,29). The DECLG, provide the
funding for social housing energy retrofits and were reported to receive monies from the
DCENR for a third of the carbon savings (10:14).
Like other annually released grant monies the DECLG funding brings time
constraints. In Dún Laoghaire, to retrofit a building for the elderly, health and safety
concerns, contractors and external consultants had to be in place in order to start on site
in July and have the works completed in time for post-works BER assessments to be
submitted in mid-October for the council to draw down the funding (3:32,34). For the
27,000 housing units owned by DCC energy retrofit monies are supplied by the
DECLG:
A lot of the control, management and funding comes from the DECLG
and the Council is more a manager of that. There is an idea that the
Council has total responsibility if the flats are run down. It is as much a
reflection on the Government as it is on the local authority, even more so.
(2:45)
An example is the Dolphin's Barn flats that have had serious damp and mould
problems for years (10:48,49). The flats are now undergoing a rolling program of
piecemeal retrofit of the most seriously affected flats, "probably funded by way of
special pleading to the DECLG”, with a possible regeneration beginning in about three
years time – in 2015 (10:50).
In local authorities, investments in retrofit measures in the highest consumption
accounts, usually Water Services, Public Lighting, and larger buildings, can save very
large amounts of energy – a high Pareto effect that SEAI hopes to help them address in
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a structured way with Energy MAP training (11:13). This year’s SEAI Better Energy
Workplaces grants are not intended to fund projects that are already financially viable:
If a grant was given on purely financial terms you would not need a
grant, because if this building showed a 20% saving say, and it would
pay for itself in three years, why would you want to grant-aid that? To
give a grant toward that is probably a bad appropriation of public funds
because they should be doing it anyway, you should not need a grant to
do something that is commercially viable. Grants are brought in to
incentivise something that is not happening in the marketplace.
(11:45,46)
In grant application reviews, private sector applicants are vetted as to whether
they really need the money, this is less so in local authorities where budgets are tight
and the money is always needed (11:60). Applications were judged on the basis of
seven criteria including employment provided and new forms of procurement
mechanism (11:61-62). The involvement of energy suppliers or ESCos was encouraged
but very few, or no, local authorities applied in this way, partly because ESCo funding
is considered to be debt on their accounts (11:49). Another aim of the grants is to
encourage retrofits that include multiple project elements and/or involve many sites all
carried out by one applicant (11:52,53). Nonetheless, in grading the applications there
are "a lot of marks for the financial business sense" to ensure that it is a replicable
project (11:61). The annual timeline of grants, funded by Government and the EU, is
very tight. The rules and guidelines for each year's project are usually different,
delaying applications that will then also have to be laboriously evaluated, producing “a
strong administrative burden” (11:44). If approved there are usually only a few months
for applicants to confirm and procure the project. This means that:
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For the SEAI grants the timeline can be such that the grants are open for
application at the beginning of June and they expect the works to be
completed by the end of September and the verification carried out. So
that timeline is such that you are dependent on grants being available,
but you are supposed to have your ducks lined up in a row beforehand.
A lot of work may have been expended and maybe external consultants
retained to get various things to get the grant, which may not even go
ahead or it may be changed or tweaked, or your project may not be
deemed acceptable. (10:32)
In Dublin Fire Brigade, the Green Plan is now at a stage where the ring-fenced
funding produced by the significant retrofit savings at Kilbarrack, verified by SEAI, are
now funding further retrofit without the need for further grant funding:
It is self-generating. It is money that did not exist and the most
important thing from the ring-fenced saving fund idea is that, say at the
end of this year 2012, we have all the savings from Kilbarrack plus all
the savings from Phibsborough now in the one pot ready to go to the
next fire station. Already that fire station has been chosen as the Fire
Brigade's workshop, the garage in Stanley Street, where we service all
of our vehicles. That fire station/workshop has already undergone part
of its transformation before the year is even finished and I am still not
even asking management for money. (13:10)
By establishing monitored baseline results the DFB intend to go to the private
market for ESCo or PPP funding with a good knowledge of current consumption and
performance (13:26). The technical and investment research carried out by Neil
McCabe, as well as M&V reports, will allow a more informed judgement to obtain the
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best value from offered investments (10:35). Onerous ISO 14064 auditing has also
been satisfied, allowing carbon credits for the retrofit savings achieved to be sold,
providing further revenue for the retrofit fund (13:43; see also 1:7; 10:66).
6.2.4.3 Retrofit Grant Funding
One of SEAI's aims is to lengthen investment periods to five or ten years, ideally
through the use of ESCos, and avoid funding applications that are just looking for quick
paybacks (11:53). SEAI offered some workshops at the beginning of the BEW scheme
but applicants are not given any particular guidance on the lifecycle to be considered in
calculations (11:56). Life cycle costing concepts were noted as, "only just starting to
come in" so applicants were not using those methods for their applications (see also
11:57). In BEW applications sub-projects submitted were allowed to pass with only the
investment simple payback filled in but applicants were given a few more marks if they
entered a Net Present Value amount (11:55).
At the DECLG, the proposed housing retrofit programs are funded on the basis of
achieving upgraded BER ratings above an F-rating. An improvement in excess of
300kWh/m2.y would receive 90% funding per dwellling up to a maximum of €15,000;
the next band down is above 200 kWh/m2.y; and some funding is available for
improvements of more than 50 kWh/m2.y (7:10; 10:27). BERs are required before and
after the retrofit.
The pre-works BER is used as a basis to assess each measure in an assessment
spreadsheet to give an estimate of the payback before proceeding with works (7:12).
This spreadsheet calculator, made by the DECLG, has been issued to councils for them
to do a cost analysis of measures (7:13). Ideally, a payback of fewer than 15 or at most
20 years is acceptable (7:22). In some cases, not using this design support tool led some
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councils to invest in measures that did not upgrade the BER rating and failed to obtain
the funding (7:27). Some BER assessments seen have very large 1200 kWh/m2.y
energy use [a G-rating is for houses using over 450 kWh/m2.y] showing the need for
upgrading works (7:27-28).
The DECLG architects offer general advice and guidance toward carrying out the
most cost effective and beneficial measures, so they do not check detailed designs.
They provide an overview, comparing retrofit costs between councils on the basis of
euro/kWh.m2.y improvement, an example shown resulted in retrofit costs of
€31/kWh.m2.y (7:31).
6.2.4.4 Investment Cost Analysis in Local Authorities
While binding targets are not yet in place (2:55), they would force investments to
be made but currently there is no funding to meet them (7:31-32). Local authorities
have generally not done cost analysis of energy related costs because energy has been
seen as a relatively cheap overhead (8:41). However, energy costs have risen rapidly in
recent years (8:37) so that making savings has become important (9:47,68).
In retrofitting public buildings, as at Crumlin Swimming Pool, repairs are
prioritised but energy upgrades are not a main focus (10:5). The economic crisis has
made current investment payback time horizons as short as a couple of years (2:56; see
also 1:4), even though a reasonable time horizon for a building appraisal might be 30
years, with about 15 years for elements such as heating systems (2:77). Deep retrofits
may have longer paybacks but also have significant, wider, ‘public good’ benefits such
as healthier, more comfortable public buildings and publicly owned social housing
(1:5,6).
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Councils currently see simple payback as the primary appraisal measure as it is
the metric used by DECLG grants (3:25-26; 10:70,71). However, even fast payback /
long service life items, like pumping cavity walls with insulation, are not being
sanctioned now because they require initial investment and organisation (6:34; 10:41).
LCC on longer periods was noted as being potentially complex, which might be off-
putting, but it would be a good start if it became required standard practice in all public
building assessments (1:1,3). The gullwing flats in Dublin are sixty years old so:
You could argue they have paid for themselves so you could demolish
them, but also you could extend their life. Demolishing and rebuilding
would cost €10 million for Glover Court, just as a rough idea, and our €3
million [retrofit] job would have enlarged the flats a little bit as well…
(10:31)
LCA (not LCC) was noted as being too complicated by another respondent (3:26)
and cost saving analysis instead is aimed toward the DECLG guidelines based on
individual measure paybacks and BER targets (3:22,27,28). Lifecycle 'demolish or
retrofit' decisions on older houses and buildings are not being made when considering
the existing stock (10:82) and planning for the long-term uncertainties such as fossil
fuel availability is not being done (10:80, see also 1:15). Budget constraints mean that
life cycle costing on terms of over 20 years is not possible now for local authorities:
You cannot do it. You cannot even plan for the age of the stock over a
longer arc. Anyway we will see how it goes, this is all a function of the
moment; it was not like that before, so we will see. (9:63)
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6.2.4.5 Investment Co-Benefits and Energy Billing Data
Current cost analyses do not take into account potentially large co-benefits of
retrofit such as health or comfort that could address fuel poverty (3:15; 9:35) though it
is known that there are studies showing significant resultant health savings (1:6,18,19;
10:61,68,79). This could be because it might be "quite a difficult thing to achieve or to
monitor" though it is clear that feedback following a retrofit of elderly social housing
showed that there was a “substantial improvement in peoples comfort conditions that
was an integral part of our work” (3:15-16). Social housing can be very poor in quality,
but the councils have no financial incentive to improve dwellings because it is the
tenants who pay the energy bills and if a dwelling is improved the rent paid does not
increase (10:11).
DCC departments find it difficult to obtain energy data to establish baselines,
against which to judge savings, because energy consumption amounts are not easily
available being only printed on hard copy bills, whereas the costs arrive in digital form
without attached consumption data (4:16,17; 5:16,22). Councils lack expertise in
investment appraisal of retrofits (10:39) and have a limited leeway in budgeting:
The big problem though is that capital budgets are separate from current
spending so that savings in current spending do not end up being
available for capital. It is quite often a problem (10:72)
Due to cost, specialist advice is not being sought in retrofit investment decisions
(10:84) and experimental projects often carry higher risks leading to higher costs (2:76).
Neil McCabe has had no specialist advisors to assist with investment planning (13:19)
for the Green Plan so over three years he carried out detailed technical research to
establish source selection criteria, potential savings and lifecycle costs for possible
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retrofit measures (13:20) – the resulting information is about to be published as Green
Public Procurement and Investing in Climate Change (13:22).
6.2.5 Monitoring and Targeting (MT)
MT codings were made when responses referred to: any energy saving or carbon
emissions targets (meeting the headline target or any intermediate/departmental targets);
monitoring or metering of buildings; or to data analysis and reporting. For the MT
category, 99 scored codings were made with an average attainment level of 1.5 for both
National and Local levels (see Section 6.3). The mode was 1 in each case. Looking at
targeting alone, 18 codings were made with a mode value of 0.
6.2.5.1 Targets
Delays in achieving energy saving targets in buildings are likely (2:62) as there
will be no strong push until firm figures are available (8:44), and it is likely that Ireland
will in any case have to buy carbon credits in order to meet its legal obligations (2:9).
The overall 33% energy-saving target has yet to be connected with what is happening in
the public sector (11:68). The targets are essentially meaningless because there is a
large amount of uncertainty in the current baseline data due to a lack of reliable
information and different estimating methodologies (2:21,37). This means that it may
not be possible to know when the target has been achieved (9:75). One respondent
stated:
I do not know if they will really be able to hold anyone accountable to the
figures because they are not robust enough at all yet due to so many
uncertainties. Even for the stuff as simple as the actual utility bills there
is so much uncertainty. (8:45)
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Disaggregation of the overall target figure, so that it is budgeted at each level for
councils, departments or facilities, is at an early stage of consideration (11:65). There is
also a need to keep track of the interdepartmental aspects of reaching the 33% target
(11:27), but no such accounting for variable achievability is currently occurring
(2:29,34,68; 4:38; 6:37; 10:64; 11:64; 12:44) and no mention of annual targets was
made by respondents. It may be best for targets to be set at building and facility level if
they are to be meaningful, so avoiding the segregation problem of separating the target
among departments (2:72).
6.2.5.2 Monitoring and Metering
At national level, SEAI have recently collected 30,000 MPRNs and GPRNs so
there will be a much better estimate of public sector electricity use, but there are still
reporting gaps (11:32). In the recent SEAI/CCMA report, local authority energy use is
divided into Water Services; Public Lighting, and Unallocated, which includes buildings
(8:2).
In Dublin, there have been problems in locating and reading some meters
(6:11,27) and gas meters have been hard to check with Bord Gáis (6:13) but most have
now been captured (6:15). Collating meter numbers and MPRNs over the last two to
three years enabled the council to find meters where bills were being paid in unused
locations and savings have been identified (6:26,31,36). A display screen showing live
meter readings of the Civic Office’s energy and water usage has recently been installed
in the lobby area of the complex (4:40). Automated monitoring of the Civic Offices is
now in place (2:40), but generally very little metering or sub-metering is occurring in
buildings (3:7) and a great deal more needs to be done in verification of savings
(2:29,30). Funding for monitoring is currently lacking (11:38) and would have to be
paid for out of operating revenue funds (4:21). There is often a large gap between the
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design specification of facilities and the actual performance in practice but often no
allowance is made in budgets for follow-up performance verification:
There is not much connection between capital and current accounts. It
would be much better if there were. So you can get money for capital
investment, but it is hard then to get money from a current account to run
[M&V] on a day-by-day or week-by-week basis. (2:75)
Modelled rather than measured and verified figures are often being used when
reporting savings (2:74; 10:57) and these have built-in uncertainties so IPMVP is
probably needed to increase accuracy in verification (11:38). Agreement has been
reached with the residents of Dolphin House to install energy and condition monitors to
verify performance after retrofit. (10:56). Monitored sub-metering in public buildings
would be ideal but, currently, monitoring of incoming metering will be the easiest to
achieve but there are delays in implementation (11:39). BMS systems are commonly
designed to work with automatic logging systems but these have not been installed and
would cost money to monitor (2:40; 3:38; 9:46; 11:24). One respondent said:
I think we have to somehow start getting into a different world. Even the
BMSs, we cannot read them and we do not know what is going on. We
have to find ways so that there is real monitoring and control. (9:95)
External technical expertise in monitoring has been successful recently in making
savings, such as locating and addressing air loss at the civic offices recently (6:35), and
has been usefully consulted in the past for other projects (10:58).
In the leisure centres there is no automatic monitoring installed (4:30) and
specialist advice would be needed if they were thought to be required (4:21,30). The
only leisure centre meter reading known to be occurring is in Poppintree Leisure Centre,
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by Cormac Healy, the Duty Officer there (4:5,16; 12:8). There has been a lighting audit
at Ballyfermot Leisure Centre recently with a recommendation not to replace lamps
until required by the light level and then put in LEDs as necessary (4:28).
In DFB, a high quality BMS system with monitoring has been installed in
Phibsborough Fire Station and it was recommended that every fire station should have
one (13:27-28). At Kilbarrack, work was required to get around not installing a BMS,
the cost of which helped to justify the measure in future retrofits (13:27). Flowmeters
are being used at Phibsborough and Kilbarrack to monitor rainwater and wastewater
(13:31). However, there is no national or local system of water metering so there is no
push to do this monitoring other than the ethical push from the Green Plan (13:30). A
two-year project, flow monitoring the pressure and volume water usage of a fire engine
has been carried out, which may well change the way firefighters use water to fight fires
(13:34). A large energy trial, funded by Green Plan savings, is happening across three
DFB locations and is being independently monitored by SEAI using IPMVP standard
M&V (13:25).
6.2.5.3 Housing and Public Lighting
There is a clearly defined target of a C1 rating or a 200 kWh/m².y improvement in
BER set by DECLG although funding only allows upgrading of voids and there is no
deep general retrofit policy (7:7,17). Both pre- and post-works BERs are required to
verify the baseline condition and the retrofitted condition to qualify for grant money
(7:12,17; 3:13,37). In SDCC since 1999, fabric and heating systems have been
upgraded in social housing including, out of 9,200 houses in total: 2,000 cavity wall
insulations; 2,800 heating upgrades; 900 double glazing upgrades from single glazing
(9:11-12). Based on BERs the estimated average energy saving for renters is 37%
(9:25). In Dublin there is some sample information on the social housing stock
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estimated by Codema based on BER information gained by work done on voids (10:78).
More transparent reporting and accepted comparative indicators of housing energy and
carbon emissions performance would help comparisons domestically and internationally
(9:67).
The Public Lighting electricity supply is unmetered and therefore unmonitored
(8:3; 9:79; 11:28) and existing metering systems are unable to read ‘virtual meters’ that
can now be installed in street lighting (11:30). However, large energy use cuts in Public
Lighting and Water Services as well as buildings are needed if the policy targets are to
be met (2:67).
6.2.5.4 Data Availability, Accounting and Analysis
Many councils nationally lack rigorous energy data reporting or monitoring
(11:15,23,33; also 8:5) and in some cases it may take three or four years before it is
more complete, though a high percentage of it is now available (11:27). Much more
energy data is being required by SEAI from public sector bodies this year so that the
energy in total usage across all fuels will be known and showing whether they are on
track to meet the 33% target (11:34).
DCC corporate services have been collating total energy consumption for the
whole council since 2010, by obtaining figures from the council departments (6:2,32;
8:6). DECLG have said this reporting is no longer required but DCC are continuing to
collect the data (6:4,5); in SDCC it is thought to be still required (9:51-52). The EPA
carbon management tool is in use by DCC to collate data (6:30) but carbon emissions
are not reported in the Annual Report (6:28). There are still gaps and approximations
in the data, in part due to different bill payment centres in addition to the Finance Office
(6:14), and data has to be typed in with reference to paper bills making data collection
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and processing slow (6:23). Currently there is no cross checking with the Finance
Office of the entered consumption figures against the corresponding individual or
overall cost figures (6:22). Many of the indicators used in reporting councils’ energy
usage have large, in-built uncertainties (9:21).
In the leisure centres there is a strong awareness of energy usage because it adds
up to about 20% of running costs in many cases, and because energy efficiency and the
environment are concerns important to DCC (4:1,2,3). At Poppintree Leisure Centre an
initial baseline of energy usage has been established and comparisons between present
and past readings are now being made (12:21).
At Kilbarrack Fire Station, the Green Plan financial savings have been verified by
DCC and the energy accounting has been stringently audited to comply with ISO 14064
standards (13:43).
6.2.6 Data Provided by Energy Suppliers (PD)
PD codings were made when responses referred to the data quality or the ease of
data availability provided by energy suppliers. For the PD category, 28 scored codings
were made with a low average attainment level of 0.9 (see Section 6.3). The mode
values were evenly counted at 0 and 1.
6.2.6.1 Energy Supplier-Provided Data
DCC energy supplies have been arranged through the National Procurement
Service since about early 2011 (5:1) and there are currently about six energy providers
(6:18) in all, not including Public Lighting which is a large and specialised account
(5:2). Most providers send both soft copy (digital bills) and hard copy bills in to the
Finance Office in different formats and on a variable basis, often monthly (5:1,4). The
Finance Office only looks at the financial costs, including energy bills (5:7-8); Codema
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and Corporate Services look at consumption to some extent (5:18). Supplier billing is
focused on money so the soft copy data gives a cost and an meter reference but does not
give the associated consumption figures (5:22), which are located on the hard copy
paper bill (5:16) and cannot be easily interrogated, requiring manual processing making
it comparatively useless (5:22; 8:18): “The utilities are not supplying the kind of data
that would be valuable for an energy manager” (2:39; see also 6:18).
A requirement to provide all location, meter reference, cost, and consumption data
in a specified soft copy format from all suppliers would be very helpful but is unlikely
to happen without a change in procurement rules to insist on consistent data as well as
lowest price (5:29). Currently, Energia provides good, though slow, on-line access with
costs, consumption and charts exportable to Excel; Airtricity has limited on-line access,
it did have only cost data but is now improving; and ESB has some on-line management
but data does not seem to be obtainable on-line (8:18).
There is a need for consumption accounting but it is too problematic currently,
given the data difficulties (5:19,28; 8:29). For example (5:26; 4:2,14,17), for the leisure
centres manager to know the energy use for nineteen buildings in the year in that
department, each building’s energy use would have to be located in six or twelve
composite hard copy bills, some of them six inches thick, listing other buildings also,
and there may be five or six different suppliers. It is easier for the managers to try to
obtain the information directly from energy suppliers rather than from the Finance
Office (5:27). In Poppintree, the Duty Officer has arranged access to the centre’s gas
bill by contacting the current supplier (12:10), but getting access to the electricity bill
from a different supplier has been difficult, and as yet unsuccessful, in spite of repeated
emails (12:12).
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The difficulties with data from providers and changes of suppliers due to new
tenders adds considerable administration time, complexity and costs for the Finance
Office and for department and building managers (5:18,30; 4:8; 8:14; 12:41). It often
takes time to get suppliers to adjust the billing to include required details and then the
suppliers will often change over in a new tender period (5:18) causing continuity of
access problems for facility managers needing continuous on-line access to bills.
(12:40).
Energy users can insist on receiving the data in a set way as specified in
procurement contracts but the complexity of the billing means that training, time, and
therefore costs are involved, both in reading the bills and in analysing them (9:82,83).
In some cases, ‘unpaid bill’ notices have been sent in error by suppliers in cases where
the bills have been paid (9:84) or belated invoices arrive (one for €400,000 in Public
Lighting) due to the supplier’s own accounting mistakes (9:85) amounting to “very
unsatisfactory” service.
Even though every gas or electric meter is numbered individually and each of
these numbers corresponds to a unique meter point reference number there is no on-line
search available linking them (8:23). This causes problems in linking known MPRN or
GPRN billing information to the location and to the meter number because the bill may
have inexact or misleading associated location information (8:22,24,34). Local
authorities are getting the linked meter and meter point reference number data into
databases but it has been and continues to be time consuming (8:24).
6.2.7 Outcomes from Past Policy Implementation (OC)
OC codings were made when responses noted specific outcomes from energy or
retrofit related policy implementation (or lack thereof). The findings are varied because
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this category accepted specific outcomes of any kind and did not focus on a specific
topic.
For the OC category, 66 scored codings were made with an average attainment
level of 1.2 for National and 1.9 for Local levels (see Section 6.3). The mode was 1 in
each case. For National level there were 5 codings each for the 0 and 1 mode values.
For the Local level there were 10 codings each for the 1,2 and 3 modal values.
For DFB, 12 OC codings were made all with a level of attainment judged as 4 due
to the specific, separate results with a high quality of attainment in described outcomes.
6.2.7.1 National to Local Level – Described Outcomes
Ireland’s Kyoto target was only met because of the financial crisis and recession
(2:11) and overall in Europe energy efficiency to date has only achieved 50% of the
progress required toward the 20% energy saving target (2:11).
In SDCC, efforts at joined-up planning, as at Adamstown, saving carbon
emissions and energy use by situating new developments on the Kildare railway, have
stalled due to the financial crisis (9:6). However, SDCC has strong transport nodes,
aiding sustainability, and very few ‘ghost estates’ in NAMA ownership (9:6).
SEAI now have a highly accessible, data-rich and searchable database of all
existing BERs available on-line, with selectable and downloadable data sets, providing
free and transparent access to data (8:26).
Over the past two decades there have been several important large scale,
government-funded, national programmes of retrofitting social housing, each based on a
specific upgrade: boilers, weather stripping, and double glazing are examples (9:23;29).
These were reported to have often gone very well, especially fitting central heating to
all of DCC’s 27,000 units, so an overcladding or boiler efficiency programme would be
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possible but would require central government commitment and funding for social
housing retrofit (10:34,35). However, the overall pace of retrofit has been slow and
now it is slower so there are likely to be F and G rated houses for a long time to come
(9:31; 10:33).
No Public Private Partnerships are currently operating and limited piecemeal
assistance is being given in former PPP areas by DECLG where the PPPs failed (7:39).
Fuel poverty is a continuing problem that outweighs sustainability issues in
decision-making (9:32,33). It probably requires policy that aims for a minimum
housing standard simply aimed at eliminating fuel poverty (9:34-35). In Dolphin House
flats, little progress was made for many years in addressing the damp problems, and the
related difficulty in heating (10:48). Coverage on television may have led to the
internal retrofitting of the worst affected units that is now taking place ahead of
regeneration work, perhaps beginning in 2015 (10:52,50). Upgrading social housing
may not result in very large savings in energy use because there can be a large takeback
or rebound effect as residents can better afford increased comfort (2:53).
The outcome of annual budgets for government is very tight time schedules for
grant schemes with tight operating windows and a heavy administrative burden (11:44).
Although policy has been encouraging ESCos as a retrofit financing mechanism, very
few grant scheme applications are engaging with them (11:54).
6.2.7.2 Local Level – Described Outcomes
Overall, annual energy consumption savings (5:10) in DCC are keeping pace with
cost increases so that the total energy budget is approximately stable (5:12) while the
total available budget has fallen by about 5% over the past two years (5:35). The cost of
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energy is still relatively low and saving it by retrofit may be expensive and difficult so
energy saving has not yet concentrated minds (10:65).
The target of achieving 3% energy savings in the 2011 trial year of the Minus 3%
project was easily achieved with a reduction of 6% (2:17), although it might get harder
to achieve 3% savings after the simpler, easier options are taken up (2:18). Similarly,
SDCC saved €300,000 in their first year of monitoring bills with the help of three one-
day sessions from an SEAI-funded energy advisor and re-tendering on the basis of
increased knowledge (9:9). An energy consultancy firm has identified large savings for
DCC by examining and adjusting electricity tariffs (5:6), in one case saving about
€24,000 on one annual bill. (5:7). A large, 10% reduction in server electricity use was
achieved by the IT department of DCC (8:36). Energy use in the DCC Civic Offices
has been dropping by about 1% per year so although bills are rising they would be
higher if no energy savings had been made (8:35). The Codema database of energy use
is becoming a useful analysis tool in identifying prime locations for energy saving or
large shifts in energy usage (8:33).
Currently, in DCC, 700 units become void each year, mostly flats because houses
do not turn over so often (10:33, 2:31,45). In SDCC, retrofitting of voids is down to
150 houses per year (9:31). SDCC’s own staff have carried out extensive BERs (1,600
to date) aiming to make BER maps of estates to target further measures (9:34). Since
the new Part F of the Building Regulation was introduced, reducing the ventilation
requirement, there has been more condensation in housing than ever before due to moist
air from kitchens and bathrooms not being exhausted so condensation occurs in colder
rooms (9:38).
Even in newer, larger, designed buildings there has often been piecemeal
installation of systems and services, which have not then been tested for performance,
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or the building managers and staff may not be fully trained in how it works (8:39;
12:33). Newer leisure centres do have designed and built-in potential for energy saving,
particularly if the staff increase their awareness of how to take care of energy use (12:3).
Two years ago the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport made some money
available in sports capital grants, which DCC bid for: they were unsuccessful in a bid
for the bigger centres, that would have installed a CHP unit in Ballymun; but DCC
secured €150,000 for the smaller pools, renewing pool covers at Sean McDermott and
Crumlin Pools (4:23). Such grants occasionally become available to local authority-
only bids because money that has not been taken up in a particular round of grants is
then re-offered on a more closed basis, rather than inviting a large number of
applications needing processing (4:23).
In SDCC, newer facilities have been completed with many energy saving, or on-
site energy supply features including; CHPs, wood pellet boilers, energy efficient
lighting, and heat exchangers in leisure centres; and ground source heat pumps and
photovoltaics in other buildings (9:22). Last year SDCC were able to show savings of
15% in their buildings; for the first time, this was a verifiable figure using combined
cost and energy data to prove the savings. However, there do continue to be many
opportunities for energy saving where savings can be made through energy efficiency
and Energy MAP (9:28).
6.2.7.3 DCC Green Plan: Described Outcomes
The Green Plan has now become the business plan of DFB, guiding all decisions
in a sustainable direction by asking, “Can we actually sustain a front-line emergency
fire service?” (13:11). After four years, since inception at Kilbarrack, the ring-fenced
saving fund has become self-generating, enabling retrofit of further fire stations in
sequence, each retrofit’s savings adding to the fund to make further savings (13:7,11).
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Retrofit work is complete at Kilbarrack and Phibsborough and semi-complete in
Donnybrook, Dolphin’s Barn and Tallaght Fire Station (10:39).
Water is seen as equivalent in importance to energy so, at Kilbarrack, all grey
water from the fire station and rainwater collected from its roof is treated and used in
the fire engines to put out fires (13:28). Running costs for water were €5,500 annually
but now almost no water is now being used from the mains, such that the station is 97%
water independent (13:29). At Phibsborough, a 20,000 litre tank has been installed
below ground and all water for fire fighting now comes from the roof (13:33) – each fire
station has the potential to collect 14,000 litres of water every ten days with fire engines
requiring 1,800 litres per fill.
Uniting the Green Plan ‘Transport’ and ‘Waste’ themes, biodiesel made from
cooking oil collected from fish and chip shops across Dublin is being used to reduce fire
engine running costs by €150,000 per year – biofuel from land crop is not acceptable
because it competes with food (13:37).
Overall, it is estimated that DFB will easily achieve the energy saving and carbon
emissions reductions well ahead of the dates set, potentially reaching 90% savings if the
new procurement document leads to the ESCo and private funding arrangements that
are planned (13:39). At Kilbarrack: reductions of 97% in water usage and 85% in
energy use have been achieved; present and retired firefighters have been involved in
creating an allotment and growing vegetables; and wind turbines have been successfully
trialled. In DFB, the Green Plan has now also led to recently completed successful
trials of three phase lighting, recycled frying oil as fuel for the fire engines, and a live
registry, each of which will deliver major savings (13:pc). These have all come about
beginning with the savings made at Kilbarrack and are now at the other stations also.
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‘Society’ is key theme in the Green Plan, both internally, in each station and in the
Fire Brigade as a whole, and externally, so that stations become hubs of sustainability
for their local community. School children across Dublin are beginning to talk about
how they are hearing about sustainability from their local fire fighters (13:12). At
Kilbarrack, an on-going process of firefighter involvement and technical retrofits has
created a series of socially engaged energy, waste and water saving improvements
(13:9). Overall, the combination of behavioural and technical measures have led to
significant returns and co-benefits:
We are using rainwater and wastewater to put out local fires. Because
we are doing that, the community responds with so many letters and
cards being written to us. They will come up and say: “Are you the
crowd using rainwater to put out those fires”. We will be there doing
that and they will be saying, “That's amazing!” (13:46)
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6.3 Codings: Counts and Average Attainment Levels
Table 6.1 shows a simple pivot table analysis of the overall attainment level
averages for EMM categories and governance levels, providing an indicative,
comparative assessment of current overall attainment within EMM categories and
governance levels. These values will have low weighting if the number of codings is
low.
Greyed result cells indicate fewer than 10 interview comments were coded for the
cell. Overall averages relate to the adjacent total count of codings. For example the
overall average for Management Structure is 1.5 based on 87 comments, and that for
Local level is 1.6 based on 417 comments.
Table 6.1 Attainment levels for EMM categories and Governance levels.
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CHAPTER 7 DISCUSSION
7.1 Leisure Centre Surveys
7.1.1 Survey Observations Discussion
The survey revealed behavioural, technical and management issues in the energy
management of the leisure centres relative to best practice in literature.
In the centres, many of the behavioural problems seen are initially caused by
technical building or services design. As was observed frequently, if a building does
not react to ambient conditions then building users attempt to change them by opening
windows for ventilation or switching lights on in the darker conditions. However,
energy wastage soon occurs as a result of such actions as ventilation need is reduced or
daylighting improves. The literature (section 2.2) indicates that it is well worth
assessing the benefits of technical changes, but even if technical solutions are put in
place, good behavioural awareness and energy saving habits will decrease the payback
time and overall cost of retrofit measures. Increased awareness would save energy by
changing habits toward containing rather than permitting wastage, however on the basis
of interview evidence, improved motivation is clearly required.
It is striking that there were thirteen new facilities built between 1995 and 2008,
but no significant retrofit or renewal investment appears to have been made during that
time in the six older buildings. The recent retrofit measures in the older pools were only
made following a successful bid for retrofit grant monies. Another bid for a grant for
the larger centres was turned down, even though it would have been likely to result in
significant savings. Investment logic suggests that a life cycle view of costing has not
been taken in the past given the level of on-going energy costs in some buildings. As
highlighted in the literature (section 2.3.3), there is an on-going cost of doing nothing to
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an existing building. However, the survey observations, would suggest that such costs
continue to be accepted as a cost of building ownership.
7.1.2 Data Analysis and DEC Ratings
The very high energy use of some centres indicates that there are potentially large
energy savings to be made. As Table 4.1 shows, giving 2010 figures, two of the
centres, Finglas (over 2,947,000 kWh costing €162,000) and Ballyfermot (3,157,000
kWh costing €184,000) use very large amounts of energy. For Ballymun, for which the
gas bill was unavailable, the electrical use alone was over 1,079,000 kWh costing
€141,000. It quite probably uses more than the other two large centres judging by the
electricity bill, its size, and the lack of a CHP unit. The EUI for Finglas was 1500
kWh/m².y and for Ballyfermot it was only about 800 kWh/m².y. The CHP unit or other
factors at Finglas seems to have been less efficient than that at Ballyfermot given that
Finglas is significantly smaller and has a higher EUI.
There are continuing losses that have wasted very large amounts of energy (and
money) in the past and continue to do so unnecessarily. The three older 'stand-alone'
swimming pools all use about 1.5 million kWh per year with EUIs between 1,700 and
2,200 kWh/m².y. These are large amounts, though surprisingly their DEC ratings for
2010 were E1 and Fs rather than Gs, when benchmarked against similar buildings.
Illustrating the current and past level of energy waste, at Crumlin Swimming
Pool, the proposed installation of heat recovery ventilation at a cost of €80,000 (with
BEW grant funding) could save at least 30% in gas usage that currently costs over
€50,000 per year giving an annual saving of €15,000 (Codema, pc). Much more would
be saved with additional insulation and air sealing, which could be pumped into the
cavity walls, raising air temperatures, increasing swimmer comfort and reducing
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evaporative heat losses from the pool, potentially saving a further 50% of the remaining
pool heating cost.
The scatter chart (Figure 4.3) of the leisure centres showing Total Energy Cost
versus Energy Cost Index (ECI) provides a useful analysis method. Changes in both
axes, from year to year, are immediately apparent and require explanation. For
example, the very large changes in energy use for four of the centres from 2010 to 2011.
There may have been a change of usage pattern, equipment failures, behavioural
changes or billing errors. The absence of data for some buildings and only one or two
annual data points for each centre restricts the current usefulness of the chart. These are
retrospective measures of performance but even this limited evidence of large changes
shows that there is a need for automated ‘live’ monitoring of the energy use of the
centres given the high energy costs in some of them.
The 2010 figures, in Fig. 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3, indicate similar energy performance for
all three older pools, but the 2011 figures are dramatically different with a total cost and
ECIs for Sean McDermott Street and Coolock in 2011 twice that of Crumlin. These
large rises in costs are particularly in need of explanation given that 2011 was a
significantly warmer year than 2010. Finding the reasons for these changes is a critical
part of energy management but a question for the later interviews became whether there
were established mechanisms in DCC to identify these changes in a systematic way.
7.1.3 Survey Conclusions
The continuing difficulty in obtaining energy consumption and cost data for the
leisure centres, more than 18 months after the 2010 year-end, implied some form of
failure in systems to address energy waste and resulting emissions be it at supplier or
council level.
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It may be that these findings are unsurprising to managers, but as strongly
indicated by the literature (section 2.2), good energy management relies on good data
collection, systemised reporting and analysis expertise that appears to be lacking
currently within the department and in the centres. As mentioned by staff, all energy
bills go to the Finance Office directly to be paid. Even where the facility manager was
interested in energy use and recording meter readings it was being done manually, out
of personal interest and without any advice on how to analyse the data (to weather
correct it for example). The lack of automatically logged, time-interval metering in
large centres is out of step with effective energy management procedures. As evidenced
by the experience in DFB, monitored BMSs are worthwhile for buildings where costs
are high.
The very poor energy efficiency of the older leisure centre buildings is largely due
to poor building fabric and out-dated services, which have been more or less unchanged
for 30 years. This indicates that these are clear candidates for deep retrofit or
replacement to be judged on a reasonable lifecycle, having all been more or less
unchanged in fabric terms for more than thirty years. Coolock is a particularly energy
wasteful building with very high operational costs (see Appendix H). A life cycle
costing would compare the 30-year energy use and rental or lease costs with the
replacement costs.
Repairs are planned at Crumlin Swimming Pool, due to its leaking roof, but
despite this major retrofit the major renovation plans (DCC, pc) do not include an
energy upgrade to the whole building on a cost-optimal, life cycle basis as the EPBD-R
lays out. By observation, it is a rectangular building with ease of access to all sides and
the pool building has wide-cavity masonry walls (survey by DCC shows cavities around
pool area are 300 mm across) that could efficiently and cost-effectively be filled with
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insulation. For these reasons it would seem an ideal candidate for a 30-year lifecycle
deep retrofit approach.
7.1.4 Limitations of the Leisure Centre Survey
The walk-through energy audits were restricted in time to between one and four
hours and relied on personal observations and conversations with staff. Much of the
time was spent in measuring the floor area, a key input for the DEC calculation. The
plant rooms were seen in all cases but only visual observation of boilers, HVAC and
lighting types was undertaken; no technical examinations were undertaken. These
factors limited the depth and quality of the findings. Nonetheless, the basic audit
revealed many areas that would require more detailed auditing to assess retrofit
potential especially the HVAC systems. The detail revealed by staff depended on which
members of staff were available and their level of knowledge of energy use in the
building.
7.2 Document Analysis
7.2.1 Appropriate Investment Appraisal
The document analysis findings (Sections 5.5.1 and 5.5.2) show that simple
payback, without a specified time limit, is the appraisal method favoured by the BEW
grant scheme. The only mention of other methods are cells provided in the sub-project
listing for NPV and IRR but there is no a stated study period or specified reference data
given, so any NPV or IRR entered would be meaningless for comparative purposes
against other applications. Energy management references describe simple payback as
an inadequate method of investment appraisal (see Section 2.9), particularly unsuited to
financial appraisal of energy upgrade investments for existing buildings. There are
many reasons given as to why simple payback is not an appropriate decision-making
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tool (itemised by Russell, 2010:130-134) yet the BEW grant scheme encourages its use
by applicants and it seems to be in use by SEAI in the Value for Money grading of
applications.
Although BEW scheme objectives are not focussed on funding projects that are
necessarily financially viable, as such projects should theoretically be undertaken in any
case unless there is market failure (mentioned also in the interviews), the objective of all
investments is increase future wealth by saving relative to some alternative. This could
be other investments or the decision to do nothing. It would seem advisable for
government to use and encourage appraisal methods appropriate to the investment
decisions being made, especially when one specified aim is to encourage public sector
bodies to engage with private investors such as ESCos and energy suppliers. These
investors are unlikely to make long-term decisions for 10 or 15-year investments on the
basis of low quality data or inadequate appraisals. Therefore, public sector bodies will
need to understand both the importance of good input data, based on valid, specified
assumptions, and how to apply appropriate appraisals if they are going to engage
confidently with funding parties to obtain good value for public expenditure on energy.
7.2.2 Timescale, Data Accuracy and Relevance
Accurate data for costs and savings are critical to good quality appraisals, as is the
timescale for assessment. The BEW Application Form appears to encourage the use of
only installation cost and a predicted figure for savings, based on a single year's energy
data, as a basis for a simple payback calculation. As was seen in Section 5.2 there
appears to be some data in the application that does not meet investment appraisal
requirements for savings to be justified as being incrementally based on the proposal.
Also it may be that some of the savings allow double counting though this is difficult to
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determine on the basis of available information. No assumptions are identified, thus it
is difficult to see how the investments could be graded effectively in 'Value for Money'
terms.
The use of only a single year's data, for 2010 (a cold year), does not give a strong
basis for an estimate of predicted savings. The observation, made during the surveys,
that new pool covers and pool water heat exchangers had been or were being installed in
Crumlin and Sean McDermott Street for example, indicates that savings due to these
measures should have been accounted for to give a more accurate corrected baseline.
As noted in the surveys findings in Chapter 4, the lack of 2011 billing data access at the
time of the application probably restricted the ability of DCC to provide a more current
baseline usage.
Only data that is of high quality should be used in investment appraisal; however,
collecting good quality data is time consuming and often costly (Holmes, 1998:7-8). As
the BEW Guide is dated March 21st, and Application Forms had to be submitted by the
end of April, it is possible that, given the very short timeline, applicants who were not
already prepared for the grant scheme may well not have had sufficient time to check
data to a high standard. Nonetheless, the application was submitted by DCC and
approved by SEAI, indicating that the ‘first-step’ procedure of checking the data
carefully was not one that would cause rejection at any of the assessment stages of a
Sub-Project or Project, or of the application as a whole.
Lifecycle costing or DCF methods would generally require a timescale of between
15 and 30 years, requiring many other costs and adjustments to savings to be included,
potentially greatly altering the appraisal. Such lifecycle and accounting requirements
are the methodology advised by the Department of Finance in the Capital Works
Management Framework (DoF, 2009:55) and by the EPBD-R as informed by EN 15459
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(Zirngibl and Francois) yet they are not being used in the grants and their use would
seem to be justified.
7.2.3 Comparing Appraisal Methods
The charts presented in Section 5.3 illustrate the differences between appraisal
methods by hypothetically assuming that the data for the 16 sub-projects met
investment quality and relevance requirements, the aim of the comparisons being to
compare different methods of appraisal to inform choice of appraisal methods.
Simple payback does give rankings that are broadly similar to other appraisal
methods but, critically, it gives no indication of the profitability or overall benefit or
loss provided by the investments. The four shortest payback period investments are by
far the best value proposals, as also chosen by the other methods, so it is the ranking of
the more marginal investments where differences become clearer. For example, project
5 appears to have a reasonably short payback of six years yet, as shown in the NPV and
PI charts it is barely profitable and may be unprofitable if the anticipated savings are not
as high as predicted. All of the alternate methods provide more information and give
more definite accept/reject criteria than simple payback.
As noted in Figure 2.1, retrofit appraisals for existing buildings are not yes/no
decisions because the option to keep the building has already been accepted. The
comparisons performed illustrate that simple payback is an inadequate and potentially
misleading appraisal method,
Graphing the projects on a scatter chart of PI versus NPV (Figure 5.5) gives an
effective visual presentation of the projects returns, portraying both value for money
invested and overall financial value of the project.
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The Danish profitability index appraisal method for retrofitting is straightforward
and simple to understand for policy makers, architects, builders and building owners
alike. As with the other methods, reliable well checked data is required. It gives a
preference to long-lasting, fabric-first passive measures like insulation and windows –
as noted in Section 2.3.4, research shows that this can be financially justified. As the
method does not involve DCF it is also simple to calculate, given good data, and it has a
very straightforward decision-making level, stating simply that, if the PI is above 1.33,
“It is required to proceed with the measure”. It is clear from Figure 5.7 that it is likely
that more retrofits would pass the acceptance threshold using this method.
For all of the appraisals the result would be more meaningful if all lifecycle costs
and benefits were used.
7.2.4 Limitations of the Document Analysis
The document analysis of the SEAI Guide for BEW scheme applicants and DCC
funding Application Form to SEAI is not an in-depth analysis of the scheme itself but is
only aimed at assessing, in light of the declared deep retrofit aim of the funding, the data
quality and appraisal methods that were requested, utilised and approved. The findings
and discussion relies on the relevant investment appraisal literature consulted, and
findings may only apply to this scheme. Nevertheless, the findings provide an insight
into an outcome of energy policy in regard to retrofit investment by a national agency
and a local authority.
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7.3 In-Depth Interviews
7.3.1 Coding Analysis and Interview Limitations
7.3.1.1 Coding Analysis
The coding analysis in Table 6.1, shows the main purpose and relevance of the
study was to investigate energy management and retrofit investment as implemented in
Dublin, and as they are directed toward achieving the nationally set targets. The
national and local levels, and the main implementation categories therefore had the most
codings.
For the national and local governance levels the codings are very similar for each
category, lying in the EMM attainment range between 1 and 2 with ‘investment and cost
analysis’ at the low end of the range. The data quality provided by energy suppliers was
assessed as being poor at 0.9. The interviewees in the Fire Brigade and the Poppintree
Leisure Centre were exemplar cases skewing the averages in these categories toward
higher values, but providing comparative data for the national and local level indicators.
Table 6.1 indicates some of these weaknesses and some of the strengths within
interviews by stating where the number of responses related to an average or a particular
EMM category and Governance level combination. Questions on supplier-provided
data were only added to the interviews when it became clear that this was a significant
issue (so some respondents were not asked and some would be unaware of it). Except
in confirming the basic targets for energy and emissions saving, energy management
policy was mentioned by only a few respondents.
7.3.1.2 Limitations of the In-Depth Interviews
The coding of interview data aimed to reduce subjectivity limitations in assessing
a large number of responses, by use of a framework derived from literature review. This
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reduced the influence of the form of the questions or biases of respondents, provided
sufficient codings are made (Gibbs, 2011). Judging the attainment level reached in
energy management categories, as the analysis attempted, does rely on the coder, but the
need for a high level of calibration was considerably lessened by the first-approximation
estimate of attainment essayed by this research. In fact the codings could be likely to
over estimate the attainment level as the grading aimed to be in line with the
respondent’s opinion as well as being scored in regard to the EMM.
The exploratory nature of the research means that more data is needed to fully
triangulate the findings. A further limitation, due to the restricted number of
respondents and the research time available, was that no interviews of top-level
management were undertaken. This would be a recommendation for further research.
Nonetheless, the ultimate implementation of energy saving policy depends on those
closest to where 'coalface' energy-use decisions are made and as such the results should
reflect these actual practices relating to energy management at present.
All of the interviews relate to Co. Dublin, the largest urban centre in Ireland, and
are relatively large councils so there are limitations of scale in applying findings to other
local authorities though the findings regarding funding and governance mechanisms are
widely applicable to other local authorities.
7.3.2 Interview Discussion by EMM Category
7.3.2.1 Energy Policy
Energy policy at national and local level is focused on achieving targets in energy
saving and carbon reduction. Although headline targets were strongly repeated by
respondents, no further detail was evident apart from references to the NEEAP. Policy
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is in place but it does not seem to be integrated, enforced, systemised, or ‘bought-into’
sufficiently at local level to have been noted in the interviews by respondents.
Respondents noted that the national policy of improving social housing to C1
would take many decades at the current rate of progress. Given the limited funding
support for it, policy with such low levels of implementation would seem to lack
significant merit.
Similarly, at local level, the lack of definite annual or disaggregated objectives or
penalties, diminished the value of energy and climate policy for respondents. No
guiding policy, or funding, was mentioned that would encourage individual, council
departmental actions toward establishing behavioural or other managerial energy
measures. In Dublin, the SEAP is published but does not seem to be guiding the
departments within DCC, no baselines appear to be available for use by departments as
evidenced by respondents. No targets or policy from the NEEAP or the SEAP were
seen to be affecting the leisure centres for example.
In contrast, the Green Plan policy themes seem clear and highly result-oriented
with an initial focus on cost saving, enabling further investment. Most apparent was the
concentration on sustainability in all aspects that has clearly inspired staff and
management to achieve real savings. The policy emphasis on behaviour and carbon
saving, as well as measurable targets and results, was clear from the published reports.
The interviews confirmed this, but also showed that, though impressed, other
respondents remained highly uncertain about how the Green Plan results had been
achieved.
It seems that senior managers and, especially, facility managers elsewhere in DCC
and in other councils could learn from looking more carefully at the Green Plan policy
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documents. The concentration on operational level results, strongly linked to changing
habits by engaging with core themes of sustainability could inform and improve future
policy in DCC and elsewhere.
7.3.2.2 Management Structure
A strong literature finding was that managers should take responsibility to manage
energy, but it was clear from respondents that management structures in European,
national and local governance, continue to be top-down, complex and highly
departmentalised. The varying structures and management interests reported make it
difficult for effective, systemised and encouraging energy management to take place in
the public sector. There was no clear sense from interview respondents that the
management structure of DCC is deeply engaged implementing policy with energy
management, either in supporting facility staff to save energy or in energy accounting to
monitor and target energy saving. At best such processes are in the early stages of
development.
Unclear communication between and across governance bodies was frequently
mentioned as being problematic. SEAI have to communicate with a wide range of local
authority boards and agencies to create programmes, which delays implementation.
Councils have to go back and forth with the DECLG negotiating over building projects.
Local authorities engage in time-consuming negotiations over larger retrofit schemes
with DECLG. Given the annual funding nature of budgets, a delay of a few months
may well miss the next funding allocation and working window, delaying things further.
As noted by several respondents, councils currently have to go to the DECLG with
proposals and negotiate on a “case by case” basis and then resubmit proposals
repeatedly, awaiting rejection or acceptance without clear information on the decision
thresholds. From the responses given, these management structures appear
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unnecessarily top-down, complicating instead of delegating local decision-making.
Overall, these findings echoed the ‘organisational zoo’ outlined by literature (see
Section 2.4.3).
This concern extends to city and county energy agencies, which were reported as
having many different organisational models. It was notable that the external agency in
Co. Meath was mentioned as having closed due to spending cuts whereas, in contrast, it
was a small, in-house ‘agency’ in Kerry County Council that was noted by many
respondents as being successful and innovative. This lean, expert, in-house format
might be one that councils elsewhere could adopt, provided they will or can fully
commit to energy management and medium term time horizons for investment. As
noted by the literature, and as in the Green Plan, rather than distancing energy decisions,
good practice in energy management relies on all managers and staff recognising their
roles in supporting and achieving energy saving.
SEAI’s Energy MAP was cited as being helpful by both SDCC and DLRCC, but
DCC has not yet engaged with the Energy MAP process. It is possible that the larger
size or more traditional structure of DCC’s management systems is in some way
restricting this involvement. On-going retirements in the public sector, partly resulting
from the response to the financial crisis mean that there is also a drain of such sources
of expertise that are available, so retraining would seem an important option to take for
councils as shown by the effective example of SDCC’s retraining of staff to carry out
BERs. Architects and leisure centre managers reported that there is no clear in-house
council back-up bureau or energy manager for them to call for immediate advice on
energy management or retrofit investment issues.
By comparison, the Green Plan exemplifies profound organisational change
beginning at the periphery of an organisation (see Section 2.2.2), in this case motivated
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by an energy champion and supported by staff and management. DCC have supported
FF Neil McCabe in pursuing the Green Plan and it seems clear that that the DFB
management structure has been forward looking, not only in supporting the plan at
Kilbarrack, but also taking it in to change their entire business plan to enhance the long-
term sustainability of the Fire Brigade’s services and operations.
Codema act as advisors on special projects, often EU funded, and influence policy
but is not delegated with authority to independently monitor energy use or costs in
council departments to achieve targets. Codema have been assisting in documenting the
Green Plan work in DFB recently, and an energy agency would seem an ideal advisor to
directly support local and departmental energy champions to achieve results in specific
savings projects by assisting with technical and investment appraisals. However, this
does not seem to be a large part of their role currently. If Neil McCabe is going back to
full-time firefighting, as he said in interview, then it would seem ideal for DCC and
Codema to become more active in continuing his work, with his advice, to provide the
back-up technical and procurement knowledge necessary to systemise continuing
support for the Green Plan for DCC departments and facility managers.
7.3.2.3 Implementation and Motivation
A quoted respondent said that, in spite of policy, implementation had not fully
connected across government, but also observed that everything does connect at the
facility or building where the energy is used. This seems a key point that the Green
Plan addresses directly, by engaging directly with personal reasons for actions and
habits. This may help explain why the top down programmes, worked on by different
governance levels and bodies are more likely to fail, especially when judged by their
costs relative to their success or lack thereof. Although the area retrofits in Dundalk and
Tralee were mentioned as good examples of implementation at scale, there seem to be
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no plans at national level or in Dublin to replicate them in the near future and only
vague intentions to engage with energy suppliers.
The accepted fact of widespread fuel poverty in publicly owned housing would
seem to confirm an on-going failure in national policy implementation that has
continued for many years. In spite of government advisory reports showing large net
benefits, mentioned in several responses, this is set to continue for many more years
given the even slower rate of retrofit now occurring. The logic of the policy of not re-
renting F- and G-rated houses and retrofitting so slowly is that governments accept that
they will continue to be the landlords of such poor houses into the far future. National
government, the primary source of upgrade funding, is therefore, directly responsible
for the resultant excess future carbon emissions. This is at odds with the stated
emissions policy and was the case even before the financial crisis according to
respondents. This suggests that other considerations must have favoured the on-going
capital rationing with respect to social housing retrofit, amounting to market failure in
investment terms, both before and since the financial crisis.
BER ratings have clearly been effective in benchmarking retrofit improvements,
as noted by respondents regarding pre- and post-works BERs for social housing void
upgrades. Energy performance certification, such as BERs and DECs, resulting from
the EPBD, therefore appear to be an example of how top down government has
succeeded in supporting and enforcing policy through strong regulation. If government
were serious about energy efficiency policy with the public sector as an exemplar it
would seem similarly important that requirements for official DECs to be in place
would be enforced. Also, Energy MAP or ISO 50001 might be required rather than
voluntary and all public bodies would be required to publish and budget for a rolling
retrofit investment programme to identify the ideal first candidates for deep retrofit. As
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was reported by respondents, these kinds of top-down regulatory moves are not
occurring and are not being funded. As a result, the understanding of respondents was
that energy management and deep retrofit are seen as much less important than cutting
costs or maintaining the status quo.
SEAI’s Energy MAP programme was mentioned as playing a role in motivating
change in energy management practices in SDCC and DLRCC. In DCC, Codema’s
survey audits and reports are communicating building information to departments that
may not have considered their energy use previously and outside experts recently been
examining bills to find savings. The database of information on DCC buildings will
clearly be of great use in DCC energy management in locating facilities where
unexpected changes in energy use occur and identifying potential buildings for further
assessment with a view to retrofitting. It was not clear from interviews how strongly
departments respond to the advice given by Codema.
According to respondents, implementing energy management is most likely to be
motivated by individual managers with a personal interest in energy saving, as in was
noted in Corporate Services or in Poppintree Leisure Centre, or by EU supported, large
scale projects run by the council’s energy agency. In EMM terms these are both seen as
isolated and sporadic approaches rather than continuous localised improvement
throughout an organisation.
Findings regarding behavioural change were well defined. Respondents noted
Codema’s Switch Off campaign as a success, though the achieved savings were
modelled rather than metered and it was difficult to know if its effect was continuing.
Elsewhere though, behavioural change has been difficult to implement and has lacked
support. The contrast with the Green Plan could not be more clear: behavioural change
began at Kilbarrack with collecting batteries, and has continued through constructing
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their own rainwater harvesting, involving retired firefighters, and now firefighters are
teaching sustainability to school children.
The Green Plan’s core ethos has clearly resonated with firefighters and
management and it seems important that it has mostly been about doing things toward
sustaining work, community and the environment through doing things well, rather than
the focus being on ‘energy efficiency’ and ‘retrofitting programmes’. It has also come
from a trusted, operational-level co-worker not from upper management or outside
agencies, though supported by them. And it has been on-going, encouraged by small
projects with good results, and then larger projects repeating the message of success,
enriching the knowledge base and increasing local self-confidence. These findings echo
business literature and may well provide a template to follow for other council
departments and other local authorities.
7.3.2.4 Cost Analysis and Investment
Responses indicated that the kind of detailed technical and investment expertise
brought to DFB’s individual projects appears to be generally missing from Co. Dublin
councils, in large part because times have changed so radically since 2008. Before then,
large capital projects and new builds were commonplace, and income gained by selling
houses was put into upgrading remaining stock. Now, budgets continue to be cut and
there is a realisation that retrofitting existing buildings has to be done, or whole life cost
calculations have to be carried out to see if a new build would in fact be cheaper over a
30 year lifespan given lower operating and maintenance costs.
However, local authorities act under significant financial constraints due to the
financial situation, annual budgeting and an inability to act independently. Their
decision-making is dependent on a web of grant funding arriving from different
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departments and grant schemes, which often require time consuming and
administratively burdensome bidding or proposal processes for the DECLG or SEAI
grants. The appraisal findings presented in Chapter 5 would seem to confirm this
analysis. As a respondent noted, local authorities are always in need of money, making
the need for this kind of grant system questionable, especially in view of the severe
constraints imposed by annual budgeting and the rapidly decreasing level of available
funding.
As was clear from interview responses, the separation of capital and current
spending, especially in the current financial environment, combined with single year
accounting, causes significant problems for energy management and retrofit investment.
Installing monitoring equipment, technical or investment guidance, and other such
measures requires monies to be spent from highly restricted current spending. Any
savings made by departments cannot be reserved for future spending nor are they being
ring-fenced to invest in energy saving measures. Interviewees were clear that capital
spending, even for investments with short paybacks, is highly restricted and so life cycle
costing is not possible, limiting the potential for value-focused investment appraisal.
Respondents noted that local authority management is currently motivated far
more strongly by cost cutting policy than by energy saving or carbon emissions
reduction policy. The energy consumption figures are only now establishing a baseline
so it will be even more time before measures can show their worth. Deep retrofit will
require a more holistic, lifecycle approach to energy saving. As seen in the leisure
centre survey and interviews, new buildings were built during the Celtic Tiger period
but older houses and leisure centres were not renewed. Interview responses showed that
significant, lifecycle ‘replace or retrofit’ decisions have been delayed, in favour of
capital spending on new buildings or current spending for on-going maintenance and
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repair. Now there is little capital spending, and current spending may or may not be
sufficient to cover maintenance and repair, as evidenced by the repair work that will
soon proceed at Crumlin Swimming Pool and the recent cutbacks affecting house
retrofits and building maintenance noted in SDCC. Medium term investment such as
energy auditing, metering, monitoring and analysis, or small retrofit projects, are also
unlikely to proceed because they require monies from current funding.
As it will have to be closed for major renovation, Crumlin Swimming Pool would
seem an ideal building for a long lifecycle, whole building deep retrofit in line with
government and European best practice. However, the existing plans (DCC, pc) only
extend to replacing the leaking roof and internal refitting rather than deep retrofit with
whole building insulation and air sealing. Piecemeal renovations are also on-going in
Dublin flats, which were mentioned as being long overdue for replacement or cladding
(though a regeneration is planned beginning in 2015). It is notable that architects in
DECLG and Dublin councils are fully aware that the solutions being used are neither
optimal in cost nor in building science terms, but they note that they have to make do
with the funding available. For social housing, councils do not receive any benefit from
increased rents after retrofit, creating serious ‘principal-agent problems’ in retrofitting.
As noted by respondents, research suggests that these are highly productive investments
for society with numerous long-term cost, health and energy security benefits
As mentioned by respondents, retrofitting entails significant ventilation and
condensation risks, requiring considerable building science knowledge and analytical
skills, which were noted in interviews as being new to many architects. Much technical
and investment appraisal evidence (acknowledged in interviews) shows that shallow,
piecemeal retrofits may provide poor long term value and carry potential condensation
and ventilation risks. Unfortunately, due to the short time horizons enforced by both
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annual budgeting and financial circumstances, dominated by demands for short-term
cost saving, these continue to be the dominant type of retrofit undertaken.
Commonly throughout the councils, there appears to be a very limited
understanding of investment analysis that could facilitate retrofit decision-making.
DECLG provide useful technical guidance on retrofitting dwellings (pc) and although
they use simple payback appraisals, the acceptable payback was stated in interview as
being up to a reasonable acceptance level of 15 years. However, to invest in such
medium to long-term energy saving projects will require more funding or different
funding mechanisms. If this means engaging with private ESCos or energy suppliers
then the findings presented here show that local authorities will require a much
increased awareness of investment appraisal and funding streams to ensure that they can
effectively evaluate the proposals made by funding parties.
The literature review showed that whole life costing is part of government
recommended procedures (see Section 2.3.3), but it was found that these are not in use
by councils (or by SEAI or DECLG) in costing projects. Both the literature and many
of the respondents agree that lifecycle costing, even of a simplistic kind, would give an
improved basis for judging long-term decision-making.
Unlike traditional budgetary mechanisms, the Green Plan’s revolving fund
financing model has provided flexibility in project selection and freedom in timing. Its
successful results and the interview data indicate that the artificial division in public
finance between capital and current spending is directly undermining investments in
sustainability and deep retrofit energy saving. The seed-funded and ring-fenced saving,
revolving-fund mechanism also offers an ideal model for current financial
circumstances, allowing early “low hanging fruit” energy upgrades with fast paybacks
and high returns to pay into a local fund that finances further retrofits on the first site
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and then at other sites as the fund grows. This agrees with the ‘cap and invest’ financial
and ‘sufficiency’ carbon emissions reductions policies (noted in Section 2.3), thereby
avoiding rebound effects by reinvesting in more carbon reduction.
7.3.2.5 Monitoring and Targeting
DCC currently have a target of 33% energy saving by 2020, also stated as 3% per
year. As the target is not disaggregated, it is implied, and was generally understood by
respondents, that this is also the individual target for each department and each facility.
If energy efficiency is the policy objective, it cannot be judged without good energy
data. If the initial reference level for a target, the baseline, is not accurately defined
with reliable and accurate data then no point can be defined at which the target is
reached. This would mean that the target is equally meaningless. This does not mean
that efforts to save energy are valueless, but the 33% energy saving and 20% carbon
saving targets are strongly featured in policy documents when the baseline data to
support them does not yet exist.
Currently, accounting can readily report total council energy costs for gas,
electricity and fuel but this is not so easily done at present for individual council
departments who may not know what their own energy use is currently. Combined with
the great difficulties obtaining energy consumption data, reported by virtually all
respondents, this amounts to very weak energy accounting when judged relative to
Table 2.2. SEAI are now moving to ensure that consumption data is available shortly
but it is not clear that cost information will be strongly or directly linked to it as good
energy accounting demands.
Though respondents reported that kilowatt-hours are the measure preferred by
SEAI and governments, this requires the setting up of energy accounting systems, which
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are yet to be established and have numerous complications, as was noted by several
interviewees. The Green Plan aim for initial cost savings may well be a key target
metric because it is easier for all involved to understand money. Critically, it is already
highly monitored through standard financial accounting. As confirmed by personal
communication with the DCC Finance Office, energy costs are not currently accounted
for separately in this way, for each specific leisure centre for example. Doing this
would give a baseline energy cost for every centre, potentially with good historic data
also, against which to target improvements.
Examining bills carefully requires knowledge and analysis but can clearly pay
dividends as in the €24,000 saving made by an energy consultant on DCC electric bills.
Energy usage data is not being reported, or accounted for, even in large facilities, in
ways consistent with good energy management practice to enable checking of billing
and supplier-submitted arrears. The three largest leisure centres are significant energy
users but remain unmonitored whereas the OPW were noted as having interval
monitoring with remote logging on much smaller buildings. It would seem prudent to
ensure that monitoring, reporting and analysis are in place for the larger centres.
7.3.2.6 Provider Data
Frequently mentioned by respondents, the unacceptably poor quality of data
provided by energy suppliers is an on-going problem creating serious accounting
problems for the Finance Office in DCC and for facilities and departments bearing
energy costs. As reported, energy bills and arrears claims are difficult if not impossible
to verify, potentially allowing possible billing errors submitted by suppliers to be paid
but not allowing any effective means of checking the billing’s accuracy. The billing
problems appear to echo the “atrocious” UK utility billing practices (see section 2.2.4).
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As confirmed by the NPS (pc, email), the existing tendering contract allows the
NPS to enforce billing requirements and it would seem possible to insist on a simple
billing format from all energy suppliers providing uniform digital, soft-copy data
containing all relevant identification, cost, consumption, carbon emissions and meter
information on a single line of readily interpretable data (OPW, 2010, see S3.5, S1.2.2
and S2-2.7). The contract states “Tenderers shall supply such information in the
electronic format specified” (ibid.:14). When contacted regarding these findings, the
National Procurement Service (NPS, pc email) commented that building up the client
base of public sector bodies has been a major task and they will only be approaching the
suppliers once the many registration and supply point transferral resolutions have been
carried out and after the requirements of the many public sector bodies have been
ascertained. Energy policy that does not begin with good energy accounting, linking
cost and consumption, is compromised by poor data and will be of limited value. The
billing data problem would seem a straightforward one-off cost to address. As a
condition of tendering and as a supplier obligation this could be regulated for and
immediately enforced by government to support energy policy.
Further data problems noted by respondents were delays and information gaps
when obtaining meter point reference numbers (MPRNs and GPRNs) from the MRSO
when meter numbers were submitted. According to respondents there is no clear reason
why the data is not transparently available on-line.
7.3.2.7 Outcomes
The better outcomes reported in the findings include the on-line database of all
existing BERs made available by SEAI and the two area retrofits of estates in Tralee
and Dundalk. Few other positive outcomes were apparent from interviews though. At
local level, in DCC, the Minus 3% and Switch Off projects coordinated by Codema,
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were reported as notable successes, as judged by modelled results, as was a 10%
reduction in electricity use achieved by the IT department in the Civic Offices.
SDCC’s verifiable 15% savings using energy data combining cost and consumption
data were notable for being monitored savings from bills rather than modelled results.
SDCC and DLRCC both reported successful outcomes from using Energy MAP
guidance from SEAI in gaining a degree of knowledge and control over billing issues
though problems remain. SDCC and DCC have made efforts to upgrade public lighting
despite the lack of metering on these very large accounts. The plan by SDCC to tender
this account separately would seem a good option to establish its worth more exactly.
Newer public buildings have incorporated energy saving designs but frequently
the services have been installed in ways that do not enable ease of access to controls or
switching to facility managers.
7.3.2.8 Outcomes: DCC and DFB Green Plan
The outcomes reported from the Green Plan were qualitatively and quantitatively
different from other responses. The Plan’s declared aims of core sustainability of the
Dublin’s fire service have been matched by real projects with measured and verified
results at Kilbarrack Fire Station, following an initial grant investment which paid back
within four years. The long list of verified results, from many interrelating projects
supported by behavioural change, indicates a different approach from those generally
advocated in policy. There is a habit changing purpose to the Green Plan and the
firefighters’ achievements that is not clearly set out in government energy efficiency
literature or grant schemes.
The Fire Brigade has a very hierarchical and regimented structure that may well
have assisted the Green Plan after it was accepted but this may also indicate the level of
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commitment and teamwork that is required to achieve strong results, especially the kind
of early results that feed back to create a continuing impetus to do more. It is evident,
from the interview responses, from a visit to Kilbarrack Fire Station, and the level of
data gathering in research, measurement and verification, that evidence-based and
structured decision-making is part of the fire brigade’s modus operandi. Combined with
a strong purpose in carbon saving and behavioural change these factors have
transformed Kilbarrack from a highly wasteful building with a staff of firefighters with
low morale into the world’s first carbon neutral fire station, greatly increasing morale
and community support. The technical and procurement expertise developed by Neil
McCabe through his own research over several years has undoubtedly been critical to
successful implementation.
DCC have supported the Green Plan’s development and the next stage would
seem to be for individual departments to develop their own version by supporting their
operating staff in working through the Green Plan themes in their facilities or buildings.
Starting very simply, as happened at Kilbarrack where firefighters were surprised by
how many used batteries they could collect from their homes in a short time, was a
small but important first step. It would seem sensible to follow the same pattern by
supporting the most motivated staff to engage in sustainability in these simple and
rewarding ways first. The Green Plan began at one site with high potential savings, by
motivating and encouraging one team, it would seem sensible to start in the same way
again.
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CHAPTER 8 CONCLUSION
8.1 Conclusions and Recommendations
By using an Energy Management Matrix (EMM) framework of qualitative
assessment to answer the research question (Section 1.3), this research into energy
saving and carbon emissions reduction policy found that implementation at local
authority level in Dublin is only poorly consistent with good practice in energy
management and building retrofit investment. The EMM methodology proved an
effective framework for qualitative assessment of the gathered data. Only poor to
moderate levels of attainment were found in the qualitative EMM categories –
management structures, implementation and motivation, energy accounting and
investment, monitoring and targeting, and outcomes.
These results contrast markedly with those of the five year old DCC Green Plan
that began with a flagship, Dublin Fire Brigade project in Kibarrack Fire Station.
8.1.1 Energy Policy
This study’s findings, from the leisure centre survey, the document analysis and,
most strongly, the in-depth interviews, suggest that current energy and climate policy is
not a strong motivator of practice in local authorities, particularly compared with the
current pressing need for cost savings. As was clear from all respondents, there are
many hard working people in local authorities doing good work, but they are working
toward poorly defined, aspirational policy aims that appear to lack adequate funding or
effective regulatory bite to fulfil the stated intent.
The policy conflict between short term political or financial requirements and the
longer-term positive returns provided by energy and climate measures needs to be
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explicitly acknowledged and balanced if the targeted outcomes and the many potential
beneficial returns are to be achieved. The Green Plan focus on localised behavioural
change and carbon saving could improve both national and local policy.
8.1.2 Management Structure
Interview respondents noted problems with management buy-in, communications
and energy management knowledge. These were connected with departmentalised
structures and the ease with which energy usage can be ‘somebody else’s problem’.
Energy saving initiatives and programmes still tend to come from interested
departmental managers or energy agencies working on discrete programmes, often
without strong measurement and verification to measure results. The Green Plan results
show that strong management support for operational level staff, focusing on results-
based actions to change energy-usage habits and working practices, can achieve
excellent energy management and retrofit investment results. There may well be special
factors in the DFB success, associated with Neil McCabe and the fire brigade’s
management structure. Nonetheless, it would seem that there is much that local
authorities and national government can learn from the DCC Green Plan in saving costs,
energy and carbon emissions, as well as strengthening the resilience of services and
communities.
8.1.3 Implementation and Motivation
Indicative of weak attainment in EMM assessment, programmes of change to
improve energy saving were reported to be generally sporadic or dispersed, rather than
on-going and concentrated. Respondents noted a general lack of success in behavioural
change efforts and relatively few significant savings. The interview responses also
136
indicated that grant funding approval processes impede deep retrofit outcomes by
limited appraisals, administrative delays and annual budget timetable constraints.
Given the results of this research, a much increased managerial understanding of
their own critical role in energy management is needed to continuously develop,
communicate, and support operational staff in achieving localised energy and carbon
savings.
8.1.4 Cost Analysis and Investment
The findings of this research support the view that neither the financial support
currently available nor the investment guidance from central government is sufficiently
strong to outweigh a past history of inadequate investment and current short-term cost
cutting due to the financial crisis. The leisure centre survey showed that inadequate
retrofit investment has occurred particularly in older buildings, and respondents noted
that this has also been true in social housing.
Both European and Irish government policy spells out a need for life cycle costing
to achieve medium and long-term value in buildings but these approaches are not
evident or possible in current council practice or grant funding schemes. The document
analysis and appraisal comparison undertaken showed that the data quality accepted and
the inferior ‘simple payback’ appraisal method used by SEAI are inconsistent with
investment practice, particularly for retrofit investments of public buildings. Interview
respondents also acknowledged that councils lack investment expertise. These
deficiencies will need to be addressed if local authorities are to engage confidently with
ESCo or energy suppliers in EPC arrangements in future.
The revolving-fund model, as used in the Green Plan, appears to be a relatively
risk free starting point for making savings, enabling a period of behavioural, technical
137
and investment learning and encouraging progress by local ring-fencing of initial gains.
Though probably contingent on emulating the core Green Plan themes for success, this
would seem a pragmatic model for other local authorities and public sector bodies to
emulate, especially in current financial circumstances.
8.1.5 Monitoring and Targeting
Current policy gives headline targets but there is no disaggregation of targets to
council departments, or on an annual basis, nor are there strong ‘drivers’ that would
push achievement – by incentives, regulations or penalties. These factors ensure that
the policy lacks meaning for council managers and staff. Even when required, as DECs
are, compliance is not being enforced and there is little or no money available for
monitoring or reporting measures. Data quality to support the targets is beginning to
improve, but only eight years remain to reach targets that remain broadly undefined.
In the short term, an emphasis on monitoring and targeting energy cost might be
more useful than using energy consumption figures, as figures are more readily
available. Given the very large potential for savings, interval monitoring for the large
energy users like the bigger leisure centres would seem to be urgently required, and
until supplier data improves it would seem essential that all facility managers obtain on-
line access to their own facility bills by contacting their energy supplier directly.
8.1.6 Provider Data from Energy Suppliers
Data quality, as provided by energy suppliers, was reported by respondents to be
very poor indeed and not conducive to good energy accounting. An urgent need to
require energy suppliers to provide high quality, linked energy consumption and cost
digital data was identified. Though all respondents and the NPS were doubtful that this
138
would change in the near future, it would seem to be more a matter of political will,
given that the suppliers already provide all the required data on hard copy bills.
8.1.7 Outcomes
All three methods utilised in this research enquiry showed that energy and carbon
saving outcomes in local authorities, from energy management and retrofit investment
in public buildings and housing, are not consistent with the exemplar public sector role
set out by policy. Some progress has certainly been made in the past four years but it
seems unlikely that current approaches are going to achieve the intended outcomes.
In contrast to the other findings, the DCC Green Plan, in use by Dublin Fire
Brigade, ranked highly in all EMM categories. It is likely that DFB as a whole will
meet the policy targets far earlier than scheduled, at very low cost and with multiple co-
benefits. The management structure and operational priorities of DFB encourage
structured decision-making and energy management but this research, and the published
verification data for the Green Plan, suggests that it is the deep sustainability ethos of
the plan that has focused these capabilities, achieving world-class reductions in carbon
emissions. Firefighters and management have achieved the policy targets without
requiring any further investment monies after the initial grant, by using a revolving
fund, reinvesting savings in further measures to increase sustainability.
In speed and depth, a locally championed plan appears to be outperforming other
national and agency implementation, producing exceptional cost, energy, and carbon
savings as well as conferring sustainability benefits of all kinds for staff, DFB and the
community. This template for success indicates that the most important ‘front line
agencies’ are people themselves, encouraged by their own successes in achieving
sustainable outcomes for their own workplace and their local community.
139
8.2 Recommendations for further research
• Research interviews with city and county managers and councillors would
provide views of upper management and political leadership that would compare
and contrast with this research.
• Given the energy and climate change issues now faced, there is much scope for a
revival in energy management research: especially as to how operational level
local programmes can be best supported by departments and agencies at local
and national levels.
• Examining the investment case for particular sets of buildings, in line with the
new EPBD-R’s cost optimal methodology, would be valuable in showing where
opportunities lie for effective public investment, particularly in identifying the
optimum strategy for rolling retrofit in public buildings and social housing.
140
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