District heating is the “missing piece of the puzzle” when it comes to energy in Ireland, the CEO of the Irish District Heating Association has said.<\/p>\n
Pauline O’Reilly made her comments on RT\u00c9’s Morning Ireland today after the Cabinet advanced the new Heat Bill, paving the way for it to be introduced in the Oireachtas this year.<\/p>\n
The bill is designed enable the rollout of district heating.<\/p>\n
Minister for Climate and Energy Darragh O’Brien said research shows that approximately 80% of heat demand in Dublin could be met by district heating by 2050.<\/p>\n
District heating uses water-pipe networks to deliver heated water from centralised heat sources to residents and businesses, as opposed to individual boilers or heat pumps.<\/p>\n
“It’s something that we’re not familiar with in Ireland, but actually it is rolled out across Europe, particularly in Scandinavia,” the IrDHA and the former Green Party senator said, adding that 90% of Ireland’s heating comes from fossil fuels.<\/p>\n
“It is more efficient, it is also cleaner because it can come from renewable sources or waste sources”.<\/p>\n
Using waste water from data centres is one of the proposals.<\/p>\n
Ms O’Reilly noted that between 50% and 80% of the electricity in Dublin is being used for data centres.<\/p>\n
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n “What we can do with data centres is use the water that’s coming off those data centres to heat buildings and homes,” she explained.<\/p>\n She argued there is enough waste hear in Ireland to heat every building in the country.<\/p>\n “At the moment it’s just going into the rivers, it’s just going into the air. It’s not toxic but it’s just completely wasteful.”<\/p>\n