Energia makes energy savings flow for Carrig Brewing Company

25^th July 2016 – Competitive energy provider Energia has helped award winning Carrig Brewing Company reduce its carbon footprint by a massive 10,000 tonnes each year.

Energia worked with Carrig Brewing Company to upgrade its refrigeration facilities. The company currently uses almost 60,000 kWh of electricity each year and as a result of increasing beer production, consumption is expected to increase to 95,000 kWh. The energy savings from the chiller upgrade is expected to be 20,600 kWh. This will reduce the company’s carbon footprint by 10,000 tonnes each year. Crucially it will also cut its annual energy bills by 13%.

Carrig Brewing Company was established in 2011 by husband and wife team Sinead O’Connell and Martie Deegan. Their inspiration was Celtic Medieval Ireland when the Irish monks, who inhabited the small monasteries along the River Shannon, brewed hand crafted Irish ales and beers. Those Celtic monks were dedicated to a life of purity and the pursuit of excellence and those were the very same qualities incorporated into their cottage brewing industry. Carrig has harnessed that same spirit in its pursuit of excellence and in the purity of product that permeates the naturally brewed flavours of our craft beers.

This work was carried out under Energia’s “Cash for Kilowatts” scheme that provides grant funding to companies for energy efficiency projects. It means that any company carrying out an energy efficiency project can qualify for grant funding based on the amount of energy they save. The grant can fund up to 30% of the project cost. This scheme is open to all businesses, whether or not they are customers of Energia.
 
As well as benefitting from the generous grants, businesses will also make very significant ongoing savings through the energy efficiency projects. For example:

 
Carrig Brewing Company commented, “We’ve been customers of Energia for several years and after they carried out an energy audit of our operations, we realised that for a relatively small investment we could significantly cut our energy bill. The upgrade work was very smooth and had no impact on our operations.”

Lorraine Whyte, Energy Services, Energia commented, “Carrig Brewing Company is following a wide range of Energia customers by making its operations more energy efficient. By working with us they can save significant amounts of money on their energy bills and reduce their carbon footprint. Full details are available on www.energia.ie/funding or by emailing energyservices@energia.ie.”

“Through the scheme we’re delighted to be supporting the national upgrade programme ‘Better Energy’ and the National Climate Change Strategy.  Since our initiative began Energia has supported over 700 projects around Ireland, which has saved them over €10 million a year on their electricity bills. Together we have saved 93,000,000 kWh per year and prevented 43 million tonnes of carbon being needlessly released into our environment.”

 “Our scheme encourages companies to see the importance of investing in their long term energy usage. The more energy you save, the larger the financial contribution we will offer you. The aim of the grant is to shorten the financial payback period of your investment; our contribution covers on average 30% of the project total cost. Businesses can find out more by contacting Energia. Full details are available on www.energia.ie/funding or by emailing energyservices@energia.ie.”

“Energia has a long standing commitment to sustainability. This is one of the reasons why we are one of the leading providers of renewable energy to homes and businesses across Ireland. We currently supply over 795MWs of green power and thanks to a number of wind farms currently in development, we will soon increase this to 1,000MWs. Energia Group remains one of the most significant contributors to the achievement of Ireland’s renewable targets and one of the largest investors in the renewable sector.”
Energia has a 23% market share of the Irish business electricity and gas market supplying the energy needs of over 60,000 business customers.

Energia has offices in Dublin, Galway, Cork, Belfast and Omagh.