SSE Airtricity, Ireland’s second largest energy supplier, alongside a consortium of energy companies from across Ireland and the EU, successfully received the first phase of approval for a €12million EU Horizon 2020 grant towards project RealValue, of which €2.1m will go directly to SSE Airtricity.
Commencing in April 2015 and expected to last three years, RealValuewill involve installing thousands of Glen Dimplex Quantum energy systems into 1250 homes across Europe, 800 of which will be in Ireland, with 100 homes in Northern Ireland benefitting from the project.
SSE Airtricity’s main role in this project will be to manage the entire customer interface and develop business models and ancillary services throughout the demonstration trial in Ireland. Replacing traditional storage heaters, the Quantum energy system combines efficient, high-performance electric space and water heating with thermal energy storage capability.
The technology works by storing excess energy generated by wind farms at off-peak times and then releasing it as heat when it’s needed. The consortium of companies will install Glen Dimplex’s system into 1250 homes, 800 of which will be in the Republic, 100 in Northern Ireland, with the remainder in Europe.
Managing Director of SSE Airtricity, Stephen Wheeler commented:
“'SSE Airtricity is delighted to be a key partner in this ground breaking initiative. The project will enable Ireland to lead the way in integrating small scale storage, at individual house level, that has the potential to deliver real consumer benefit in the future as well as enabling more renewable energy to be produced on the island: creating jobs, reducing CO2 and actively contributing to long term sustainability and security of energy supply.”
Chairman of Glen Dimplex, Mr Sean O’Driscoll added:
“RealValue involves testing pioneering technology on a large scale to accelerate innovation. It is the first large testing of this game-changing new model for renewable energy storage, and will be instrumental in developing business models to quantify the potential of small scale storage moving forward. We are confident that RealValue will be a catalyst for change and we intend to present the results of the project to policy decision makers, helping to inform EU regulation.
“RealValue is also a text book for collaboration both in Ireland and within the EU. In Ireland the collaboration involves indigenous Irish private and public sector enterprises, Glen Dimplex, SSE Airtricity, EirGrid and ESB Networks working with Intel, Ireland’s largest foreign direct investor, together with these commercial enterprises working with academic research in the Electricity Research Centre at University College Dublin.”
The RealValue project will continue until 2018, and through the implementation of the physical demonstrations and results from broader modelling tasks, it is hoped that RealValue will be the catalyst in creating a greener future for how consumers use and store energy.