by Karen Arbuckle | Nov 10, 2021 | News, Top Stories
Edenderry Village Energy, NI’s newest community energy initiative exploring the potential for a community owned low-carbon heating system NICE was only too happy to offer support to residents from Edenderry Village wishing to develop a new community owned district heating scheme. Edenderry is located on the outskirts of Belfast. It is an old linen mill village beside River Lagan, approximately 200 homes, currently heated by a mix of oil and gas. The village locality and compact size present an ideal position for the community of Edenderry to utilise natural and sustainable resources available right at its doorstep. OSNI Spatial Orthophotography Map – Edenderry Village OSNI Spatial Fusion Basemap – Edenderry Village Residents see an opportunity for the village to make a just transition from fossil fuel heating to a low-carbon heating system and want to develop a district heating energy scheme that is owned, run by, and for, the community. One that will alleviate risk of fuel poverty, provide a stable and dependable source of heat that is not subject to increasing fuel prices and to eliminate need for harmful fossil fuel boilers thereby improving local air quality for example. Edenderry wanted to establish a community owned organisation to develop, build and manage a decarbonised district heating scheme for the whole village. A community renewable energy system that provides hot water and heating from a central geothermal heat pump system which produces three to four times more heat energy than the electricity input, to as many homes as possible, and which offers affordability for residents and also retains revenues within the community to reinvest in other village renewable energy...
