City Edge study

Codema carried out an Energy Management and Provision Feasibility Study for the City Edge project

May 2017 - March 2018

On this page: About the project Codema’s role Project results Project team Project partners and funders

About the project

The City Edge Project is a joint urban regeneration effort between South Dublin County Council and Dublin City Council. This project is in response to national strategies to regenerate Ireland’s cities and large towns, while also focusing on new housing and employment in existing urban areas. City Edge is unique in Ireland and is a transformative initiative, creating a new urban quarter and re-imagining the Naas Road, Ballymount and Park West areas at the West of Dublin City. This project has the potential to create 40,000 new homes and 75,000 jobs, making it one of the largest regeneration schemes in Europe.

Codema’s role

Codema’s role was to assist Dublin City Council and South Dublin County Council with carrying out an energy planning analysis as part of the City Edge Project, providing planners with an evidence base and planning policy recommendations that consider local characteristics and spatial constraints in delivering the City Edge Project.

As part of the project, an energy and heat demand assessment of the region to 2070 was carried out. This assessment evaluated the heating, resource and transport demands the region will be expected to meet and considered possible resources that could be utilised to do so. This work was aligned closely with City Edge’s overarching vision of creating a place people want to live that is also sustainable and resilient.

One key resource assessed was the 9B sewer that runs underneath the region. It was investigated as a source of heat recovery and was found to be able to source the heating demand of two districts. With the rest of the region being new-build, any number of waste heat sources may come online during the project, which could supplement or replace the 9B sewer as the main heat source of a district heating scheme. The region’s electricity needs could be met sustainably, given the electricity grid will also decarbonise in that time. Transport models by the National Transport Authority also showed that the region can meet its transport needs while promoting active travel.

Several key policies were recommended from this analysis, including the recommended placement of key district heating zones, energy planning, embodied carbon, renewable energy generation and the promotion of active travel.