SETTING NEW STANDARDS IN SUSTAINABILITY (FIREBIRD

Setting New Standards in Sustainability

For over 40 years Firebird, headquartered in the Gaeltacht in Baile Mhic Íre, Co. Cork, has been a global market leader in designing and manufacturing high performance solutions for the home heating market, with a worldwide customer base.

Responsibility comes with being a market leader, and over the past number of years Firebird, with a clear focus on renewables and sustainability, has dedicated many resources and invested heavily in developing products with increased fuel efficiency, reduced emissions and products that use more renewable and sustainable fuel sources.

Firebird’s mission is to play a pivotal role to support households, communities, and governments to adopt and strengthen its sustainability practices. Through its R&D centre, Firebird has and is continuing to develop new and groundbreaking renewable heating solutions and products for the market.

These products include their Firebird Enviroair Air Source Heat Pumps, which are NZEB (Nearly Zero Energy Building) compliant, with a low running cost PCB controller and high-tech intelligent heating controls, as well as a wide range of supporting products and solar solutions.

Firebird also manufactures the most efficient oil boiler on the market at 97.5% efficiency and NOX emissions as low as 60mg/kWhr which is half the EU limits, thus ensuring the use of very little fuel which is kinder to the environment and to customers’ pockets.

Firebird Heating Solutions is one of the first to trial and test HVO in Ireland. Its trials are proving how household greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by 90% with CO2 emissions decreasing by up to 6 tonnes annually. It requires little or no modification to the existing home heating system - no significant investment or capital costs, simply the introduction of the Firebird HVO burner to deliver instant savings for the homeowner and environment.

Mark Doyle, General Manager of Firebird stated “Ireland needs to be scoring better compared to other EU members in the fight against global warming and we all have a part to play. Homeowners need to be given more choice on renewable and sustainable heating solutions. Manufacturers like us have to develop products that are far more environmentally friendly, and the government has to work with us to find a sensible approach for Ireland to achieve its emission targets.”

As well as leading the way in sustainable products, Firebird, is also working to find a solution to the over reliance on fossil fuels, particularly in rural areas.

One such solution would be the introduction of HVO (Hydrotreated Vegetable Oils) to the Irish home heating market. HVO fuel is fossil free, and reduces greenhouse emissions by over 90%, is sustainable and renewable and a drop-in replacement to current fossil fuels. There are no significant expensive up-front capital costs, just the introduction of the Firebird HVO burner to the boiler and it can be implemented almost immediately.

However, there is a downside as HVO is not currently readily available in Ireland. Firebird and the trade association OFTEC (Oil Firing Technical Association) believe that if the Irish Government would support the introduction of HVO into the domestic home heating market, it could solve so many environmental problems, in particular in locations where other proposed solutions are just not practical.

Norman Armstrong, Training Consultant with SERC (South Eastern Regional College) in Co. Down and Cathal Rafferty, National Sales Manager from Firebird inspecting the efficiency of HVO as a drop-in replacement to Kerosene.

Mark stated “The government has a strategy to move everyone to electric heat pumps in domestic situations. The problem with this strategy is that in Ireland there are over 700,000 homes with existing liquid fuel boilers. Approximately half of these homes are older builds so are not suitable currently for this heating solution. Consequently, these homes would have to be retrofitted, costing as much as €30,000 per household.”

“HVO can work with any liquid fuel boiler and if used in homes, can potentially make these homes almost carbon neutral immediately.” Mark added. “We are already in talks with other governments, who are embracing the concept of alternative eco friendly fuels as they have similar issues as we have in Ireland, with our rural and older stock of homes as 42% of homes in specific countries were built before 1919.”

Firebird has first hand experience with HVO as they use the fuel to power their plants in Plymouth and Newry and recently introduced it into their plant in Cork.

Firebird has already completed successful case studies using HVO for home heating in homes in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the UK. These studies saw HVO fossil free fuel achieve a 90% reduction in greenhouse gases, 95% efficiency, 100% sustainability. No capital costs were incurred and there was no requirement for new boilers or tanks.

This innovative approach to problem solving is just one of the reasons why Firebird is a market leader in home heating; always adapting, always developing practical world class solutions with a mission to set new standards of sustainability for the home heating market.

To learn more about Firebird home heating solutions visit www.firebird.ie or contact Firebird Heating Solutions: Tel: 026 45253 Email: info@firebird.ie

Minister O’Brien approves capital commitment for significant investment of almost €90 million by Irish Water in two key projects to increase resilience and security of treated water supplyin the Greater Dublin Area

The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien TD along with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has approved capital commitments for investment of almost €90 million between the Saggart Resevoir Project and Ballycoolen Trunk Watermain Project for commencement in 2021.

Commenting Minister O’Brien said: “Both of these Irish Water projects will improve the security and resilience of treated water supply to the Greater Dublin Area (GDA). Irish Water will now be able to proceed with works for both projects early in 2021 with construction expected to take over two years to complete. These projects will also contribute towards increasing the capacity to cater for residential and commercial development across the Dublin region."

The Saggart Resevoir Project includes the design and construction of a new 100 million litres (ML) covered treated water reservoir at the existing Saggart Waterworks (originally constructed in 1951) to store water supplied from Ballymore Eustace Water Treatment Plant.

The delivery of strategic storage at Saggart is one of three measures identified by Irish Water to meet the increasing demands within the GDA in advance of a long term water supply solution, the other two being to transfer spare capacity in the Srowland Water Treatment Plant in Athy to the GDA, and to deliver leakage reduction throughout the region.

Some 600 ML/day of treated water currently produced in the GDA Water Network meets existing demand levels to supply approximately 1.5m customers in Dublin and the surrounding areas. However, there is limited headroom capacity available - only c. 3% (c.18ML/d) and at times of water stress (e.g. drought) this limited capacity can be reduced further.

The Ballycoolen Trunk Watermain Project involves the design and construction of a new 9km trunk watermain providing additional pipeline capacity between the strategic storage capacity at Ballycoolen Reservoir (which stores treated water sourced from the Leixlip Water Treatment Plant) and Swords.

Minister O’Brien added: “This project will improve security of supply and provide greater network resilience in the GDA. It will mean an increase in the capacity of the existing strategic network to cater for existing and future residential and commercial development and enable long term social and economic development of the wider Fingal area where I am acutely aware of the challenges which exist.”