Westport Woods Hotel and Spa has been awarded a special commendation at the Sustainable Energy Awards 2008 for an energy efficiency project which it has undertaken. The award, which honours excellence in energy efficiency management, was presented by Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI ) at a ceremony on Thursday November 20 in Dublin. Westport Woods Hotel and Spa targeted lighting and control of electrical equipment as part of an energy efficiency project to reduce energy costs. The project achieved savings of 29.5 MWh and 17.7 tonnes of CO2. The Sustainable Energy Awards are presented to organisations from across Ireland which have demonstrated excellence in energy management in the past year.
Brian Motherway, Head of Industry, SEI said: “Activity on energy efficiency in business is growing tremendously. The quality of entries for this year’s awards is excellent. Particularly encouraging is the standard and number of entries from SMEs. It is clear from the results achieved by these companies that there are very significant energy efficiency gains and cost savings which can be made through effectively managing the energy demands of an organisation. It is also significant that a large number of the businesses that entered this year’s awards, such as those in the services sector, are relatively new to the area of sustainable energy and are now leading the way for others to follow.”
SEI also revealed that estimated cumulative energy cost savings of €327 million have been achieved by projects which have entered the awards since their establishment in 2004. The 2008 entrants to the awards, which were sponsored by ESB Customer Supply, reported demonstrated energy savings of €17 million based on the energy management initiatives which they have implemented in their organisations. These initiatives have also led to the annual reduction of 100,000 tonnes of CO2 and further energy and CO2 savings will accrue on an ongoing basis.
