Dublin’s Christ Church Cathedral is going green, signing an agreement with Pinergy to draw power for its energy needs from Moneenatieve wind farm in Leitrim.
The city centre landmark is the first cathedral in the State to sign a corporate power purchase agreement as part of an initiative to cut its “scope three” carbon emissions – emissions that the cathedral is not directly responsible for but which may come from outside sources. “Guests are coming all the way over from America, which carries a higher carbon footprint,” said Colm Foley, Pinergy’s commercial energy manager.
A corporate power purchase agreement involves a customer agreeing to buy electricity directly from the renewable energy generator. Renewable energy developers rely heavily on such agreements to make their investment in wind and solar power projects viable. The agreement will meet all the cathedral’s energy needs and is due to last for a year.
Mr Foley said it was crucial to make sure historically significant buildings across Ireland, such as the cathedral, are not left behind as the State transitions to renewable energy.
Christ Church Cathedral chief executive Susanne Reid said the agreement supports the cathedral’s goal to reduce its carbon emissions and reach its sustainability goals.
The agreement “provides an excellent opportunity for Christ Church Cathedral and other historically unique buildings to improve our sustainability credentials while preserving the authenticity of our historic building”, she said.
The agreement between the two organisations was made within the terms of Pinergy’s guarantee of origin offer, which was launched in February this year. It provides a certificate of authenticity to companies partaking in the programme showing that they get their energy “from an Irish green asset”, said Mr Foley.
So far, Pinergy has corporate power purchase agreements for more than 130 gigawatt-hour each year from its wind farms under its guarantee of origin plan. To put that in context, if an electric car charger had a power level of 1 gigawatt, it could charge about 1,000 electric cars at the same time at a rate of 1,000 kilowatts per hour.
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