New energy efficient lighting cuts centre’s electricity costs by 33%
25th August 2017 – Competitive energy provider Energia is helping to cut the electricity costs of The Kennedy Shopping Centre in West Belfast by 33% thanks to new energy efficient lighting upgrade.
Open 26 years, the centre was using old and inefficient lighting for its foyers, basement carpark and toilets. Energia worked with the centre’s management team and their lighting supplier carried out a test run, upgrading some of the old lighting system to new LEDs. When this proved a success, a full upgrade took place. The lighting systems were upgraded, saving over 362,117 kilowatt hours of electricity.
As a result, the centre has reduced its electricity bill by over 30%. Even better, the payback period will be 1.7 years.
This work was carried out under Energia’s “Cash for Kilowatts” scheme that provides grant funding to companies for energy efficiency projects. It means that any company carrying out an energy efficiency project can qualify for grant funding based on the amount of energy they save. The grant can fund up to 20% of the project cost. This scheme is open to all businesses, whether or not they are customers of Energia.
As well as benefitting from the generous grants, businesses will also make very significant ongoing savings through the energy efficiency projects. For example:
- Lighting: LED and high efficiency lighting can typically reduce your lighting costs by up to 75%
- Heating: a new boiler or heating controls can save over 25% of your annual fuel costs
John Jones, Centre Manager, The Kennedy Centre commented, “The old lighting systems meant that some areas were poorly lit and it was difficult to regularly replace the bulbs, lighting was uneven across the centre.”
“Not only have we cut our energy costs significantly, the LEDs in the basement car park are a significant improvement – shoppers feel safer returning to their cars. The new lighting in the foyers has also made the centre more vibrant overall.”
“The 20% Northern Ireland Sustainable Energy Programme (NISEP) grant from Energia has provided a real incentive to undertake these projects and makes the payback period that much shorter. I would not hesitate in recommending the Energia grant scheme to other businesses.”
Janine O’Donnell, Energy Services Programme Manager, Energia commented, “The Kennedy Centre is following a wide range of businesses by making its operations more energy efficient. By working with us on energy efficiency schemes they can save significant amounts of money on their energy bills and reduce their carbon footprint.”
“Energia in association with NISEP has funding available in Northern Ireland for energy efficiency projects. Since our initiative began Energia has supported over 1000 projects around Northern Ireland, which has lifetime savings of £246 million on electricity bills. Together we have lifetime savings of 1498.98 GWh.”
“Our scheme encourages companies to see the importance of investing in their long term energy usage. The aim of the grant is to shorten the financial payback period of your investment; our contribution covers on average 20% of the project total cost. Businesses can find out more by contacting Energia. Full details are available on www.energia.ie/business/ni or by emailing energy.efficiency@energia.ie.”
“Energia has a long standing commitment to sustainability. This is one of the reasons why we are one of the leading providers of renewable energy to homes and businesses across Ireland. We currently supply over 795MWs of green power and thanks to a number of wind farms currently in development, we will soon increase this to 1,000MWs. Energia Group remains one of the most significant contributors to the achievement of Ireland’s renewable targets and one of the largest investors in the renewable sector.”
Energia has offices in Dublin, Galway, Cork and Belfast.