On October 10 and 11 the National Social Housing Conference, hosted by the Irish Council for Social Housing, took place in Wexford. Ron van Erck, head of international market development of Energiesprong, presented to the 300 participants how Mustbe0 creates a market for improved energy efficiency retrofits. Energiesprong focused on the Dutch market initially and on the French, the UK and German markets in recent years as well.
The National Social Housing Conference was a good starting point for Energiesprong to take a closer look at the Irish market. The size of the collective rental sector in Ireland is around a quarter of a million homes, which is significantly less than in the other markets Energiesprong currently focuses on. It is also the case that a large part of it is quite rural which are harder to address in an early market. First as they form relatively small projects and on top of that the ability to investment is often lower than in urban areas. This means that the more suitable starting market is closer to half of that quarter of a million homes. Because the Energiesprong approach typically tries to activate a market through the social rental sector, this is the first segment we are looking at. It is important that there is sufficient volume available to create an initial market. Ron van Erck: “I look forward to coming back to the World net zero energy conference on November the 13th and 14th in Dublin. This is a new opportunity to explore the possibilities in Ireland with more stakeholders from the ecosystem.”