Submitted by Isabella Donnelly, Senior Energy & Environmental Consultant (Regional Coordinator and Westmeath County Mentor, SEAI Sustainable Energy Communities)

I am reaching out to you about the Sustainable Energy Communities (SEC) programme that I coordinate for Westmeath. I was hoping you might be able to distribute the information below and my contact details to any community groups in Delvin that might be interested?

SECs are groups that come together to look at energy use in their community and identify ways to become more energy efficient. There is a tranche of funding available for SECs to undertake Energy Master Plans (EMPs) for their area (EMPS are 100% funded). A community may then look to apply for the Community Energy Grant that provides between 30% and 80% funding to retrofit homes, community and commercial buildings.

We have 14 SECs in Westmeath who are at various stages of the SEC journey, from working on their EMPs, retrofitting homes and planning 100% community-owned solar farm. I am reaching out to communities in the county that currently do not have an SEC that may be interested in joining the network. I am here to support communities that would like to form an SEC group so please let me know if you think this may be something that your community may be interested in.

If you would like to sign up to the network at https://www.seai.ie/community-energy/sustainable-energy-communities/community-network/sec-membership-registration/ or reach out to me for further details and I can assist.

Isabella Donnelly, BSc, PhD (087 2915713)