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Minus 3%

Project update: Final Minus 3% Conference to take place on 21st September

The final conference of the Minus 3% project will take place on Wednesday, 21st September from 9am - 4pm in the Hotel Habakuk, Maribor, Slovenia.  The conference will include panel presentations and open public discussion on results and lessons learnt from Minus 3% project partners from Slovenia, Austria, Ireland, United Kingdom, Spain and Slovakia .

Click here for more details and to download the conference invite.

You can download the latest Minus 3% newsletter by clicking here.

Energy Day in Civic Offices, Dublin City Council:

There was a huge interest among Dublin City Council staff in our Energy Day which took place in the Civic Offices on 6th April.  A number of exciting activities took place on the day, including the launch of a live energy screen and an interactive stand where staff got to experience some pedal power by having a go on our energy bike.  You can view a sample of the energetic performances at the bottom of this page!   

Staff members were able to see the amount of watts they generated, depending on how fast or slow they pedalled!  Even though up to 100 staff members had go on the energy bike, the amount of electricity that was generated on the day was barely enough to power a hair straightener or two laptops for an hour!  By encouraging staff to have a go on the bike, we were hoping to spread the message that generating energy takes a lot of work, and that we should all be mindful of how much energy even small appliances can consume.   

 The energy screen that was launched in the atrium of Civic Offices shows the live energy consumption of the building using 3D graphics that can react to real-time information.  

 

The energy day was carried out under the MINUS 3% project and celebrated the amount of energy that has been saved in Civic Offices so far.  In 2010, energy consumption was down by 9 per cent compared to the previous year.  To put this into p erspective, it would require 2,700 people to cycle 24 hours a day for an entire year in order to generate this 9 per cent energy saving. 
 

Some of the actions that have been carried out in Dublin City Council as part of the MINUS 3% project include:

• Examining the energy ratings of 30 DCC buildings (initially those over 1,000 square metres) and 27,000 residential units.
• A ‘Switch Off’ campaign began in April 2009 which encourages staff to switch off lights and appliances such as computers, photocopiers and printers when not in use.  To date, Codema calculates that this campaign has achieved observational energy savings of 23%, which is the equivalent to saving over €11,000 annually, or 70 tonnes of CO₂.   This campaign was recently nominated for the ManagEnergy Local Energy Action Award 2011.
• An Eco-Driving Campaign began at the end of 2009 with the aim of getting all of the council’s drivers to reduce their carbon footprint by 3 per cent by adopting eco-friendly methods into their everyday driving.  A 3 per cent reduction in the carbon footprint of drivers is the equivalent of saving 280 tonnes of CO₂ each year or €91,000. 
• Since 2008, Dublin City Council’s Information Services Department has been working to virtualise its computer servers.  Server virtualisation reduces the amount of physical servers, which in turn reduces the amount of energy and cooling required.  50 per cent of computers in Civic Offices now operate from virtual desktops which use only one tenth of the energy of normal desktop PCs.  This is an ongoing process which has so far reduced power usage by 40 per cent and saved 260 tonnes of CO₂ per year. 
• 850 down-lighters have been replaced in Civic Offices by low-energy lighting.  Each light that has been replaced has saved 85 watts, which is a saving of nearly 160,000 kilowatt hours annually or 96 tonnes of CO₂. 

About Minus 3% 

‘Shining Examples for the Implementation of the Energy End-Use Efficiency & Energy Services Directive’.

Minus 3% is a three-year project funded by the European Commission, through the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme.  Its aim is to establish shining examples for the implementation of the Energy End-use Efficiency & Energy Services Directive (2006/32/EC) in cities.  Codema is currently the lead co-ordinator of this project.

The participating cities will show that it is possible to save 3% of the City Authority’s own energy consumption per year.  The energy reduction targets are long term to reach minus 30% by 2020 and each city has a different year-by-year result to meet this target.  Dublin City Council has set its own target of a 33% energy reduction by 2020.

For more information on this project, visit www.minus3.org  or check out Codema's You Tube Channel: www.youtube.com/codemadublin

 

 

 

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