EasyPro General Assembly Meeting at Carr Communications
On 15th January 2025, the EasyPro consortium met at Carr Communications in Dublin for the EasyPro General Assembly meeting. The aim of the meeting was for the EasyPro project partners to share updates on their respective work packages and plan the next steps of the project.
The aim of the EasyPro project is to make Irish universities carbon neutral though Energy Performance Contracts (EPCs). An EPC involves an Energy Service Company (ESCO) partnering with a client organisation to install energy-saving measures in their buildings and guarantees a certain level of energy savings, while getting paid based on the amount of energy saved over time. This approach aligns with the Irish Government’s Climate Action Plan, which sets a target for all public body sectors to improve energy efficiency by 50% by the end of 2030, as Ireland currently faces over 8 billion Euro in fines for exceeding its carbon budget. Responding to this challenge, the EasyPro project is developing a tailored EPC Facilitation Service and procurement framework to reduce the costs and complexities of EPCs and energy efficient building renovations. These will be piloted in the following Irish universities: Technological University Dublin (TUD), University College Cork (UCC), Maynooth University and Dublin City University (DCU).
The meeting kicked off with a welcome and project management update from EasyPro’s coordinator, Dr Luciano De Tommasi from International Energy Research (IERC), and an introduction by the EasyPro Project Advisor, Dr Vivian Doriza from the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), who also highlighted how EasyPro aligns with EU strategies to combat global warming.
Damien Whelan and Daniel Ring from Lawler Sustainability then discussed the design of the EasyPro solution, outlining the following achievements and plans for the project: their creation of the contractor guidelines, the building energy assessments they are currently carrying out, their examination of the most effective way of aggregating potential projects, and their adaptation of existing risk assessment protocols for the needs of the Irish universities that EasyPro works with. Each university the project works with has asked them for a detailed list of potential energy efficient projects called ‘project bundles’, whereby a combination of energy efficiency building refurbishments, LED lighting upgrades, HVAC system upgrades and solar PV panels are installed with the purpose of reducing carbon emission and saving money. These bundles will be developed with estate teams to confirm which measures will be included in each bundle. TUD is the first university that will undergo this process with EasyPro, with Lawler having attended the university with Decarbonisation and Estates leads. This EPC pilot project at TUD will be presented to the other universities to show how the process works.
Joe Hayden and Adam Doyle from Codema presented on the EasyPro EPC and the project’s tendering process. Stemming from his previous experience in the DeliveREE project, Joe explained how the EasyPro EPC will provide a contract structure for a planned and phased decarbonation of buildings. This allows for the gradual phasing out of existing assets, such as boilers, which use too much carbon. The project’s selected ESCO will prepare implementation and structured plans with the building owners, which will reduce the uncertainty and complexity for them. Adam explained how EasyPro will select their ESCOs: the consortium will hold a mini competition using a competitive dialogue procurement procedure. This will ensure that the ESCOs will meet the project’s and its stakeholders’ needs and deliver innovative yet realistic solutions, as the potential EasyPro ESCOs will have to guarantee the energy and cost savings that they predict. Adam also talked about how the EasyPro consortium will engage building owners, end users and stakeholders. The project’s stakeholders, the universities, will be involved in the building renovations from start to finish, and the consortium will maintain regular communication with them, address their concerns and offer support throughout.
Dr Sean Travers from Carr Communications discussed EasyPro’s Communication and Dissemination activities. Drawing on her previous experience with Horizon Europe projects, Sean explained how Carr Communications will raise awareness of the EasyPro project among key market players in Ireland and across the EU, create scale that will enable EasyPro to reach its target investment pipeline, and enable the future exploitation of the project’s results by disseminating them to relevant stakeholders. Sean also explained how Carr Communications will communicate the findings of EasyPro to policymakers and the general public, the project’s social media strategy, its plans to cluster with other Horizon Europe projects and how it will educate the public about the EasyPro contract structure.
That afternoon, the EasyPro consortium was joined by the project’s stakeholders and ESCOs to discuss the EPC market facilitation in Ireland, the mitigation of potential challenges for the project, and EasyPro’s engagement with procurement, legal, finance and estates teams at universities.
