Corca Dhuibhne set to become leading light in sustainability

WEST Kerry is set to become a leading light as a sustainable community following the receipt by Dingle Hub of a €50,000 grant from the Science Foundation of Ireland.

The, grant will allow the Dingle Hub to deliver a range of training courses and events, workshops and information sessions through 2020 to provide information to home owners and businesses who are examining their options for more environmentally friendly heating, lighting and transport.

Although the Dingle Peninsula is particularly dependent on fossil fuels for our energy needs, that will have to change. It will be an enormous task by anyone’s reckoning, but the first steps have been taken with the ESB Networks Dingle Project funding a deep retrofit and installation of technologies that will generate and store electricity from solar panels and air to heat exchange units in five properties on the peninsula. These properties will work as an example of what can be done locally and the experiences of the people living and working in them will be shared.

The information gleaned by researchers, both technical and social, so far during the Dingle project will also be made available to the whole community, through classes and workshops during 2020.

According to Deirdre de Bhailís, Manager of The Dingle Hub who are partners in the Dingle project, their work now is to inform people about the renewable energy options that are available for home owners, farmers and businesses. Some of this work will be done by ‘sustainable ambassadors’ who are currently taking part in a training course on sustainable energy.

These all form part of the Corca Dhuibhne 2030 project which aims to see the energy requirements of the peninsula changing over the next 10 years from oil, gas, petrol and diesel to energy generated from local, low carbon emission, sources such as solar power, air to heat pumps, and even grass-based energy produced in an anaerobic digestor.

The first event taking place this year is the launch of Corca Dhuibhne 2030, which includes the publication of the Dingle Energy Masterplan, on Thursday, February 13, in Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne.

The hope is that the ESB Networks Dingle project, which finishes in 2021, will put Dingle on course to be a flagship area for sustainable communities and by 2030, the community will have met and exceeded the targets set by the recent Climate Action Plan.