The Cube has been selected to be an Irish delivery partner for SPEEDIER. This is a pioneering project that is piloting the highly innovative SPEEDIER one-stop-shop solution that applies an integrated approach to energy management. It provides information, advice, capacity building, energy auditing, financing, implementation of energy efficiency solutions and monitoring of impacts.
The SPEEDIER solution delivers a self-financing outsourced energy management service that provides considerable benefits to SMEs, enabling them to implement energy conservation measures and also obtain access to the energy services market. The vision is that the service will be available via energy consultants, auditors and experts and will facilitate the uptake of energy audits, and the subsequent implementation of energy efficiency measures in SMEs.
The service also streamlines, for SMEs, the process of identifying and implementing energy saving measures by outsourcing all time-consuming energy management activities that require technical expertise (e.g. carrying out an energy audit, training staff in good energy practices, obtaining quotes from suppliers for implementation of energy saving measures, project managing the installation, measuring and verifying the savings) to a SPEEDIER Expert. This removes the barriers of lack of in-house expertise, lack of time, lack of resources and conflicting priorities that would prevent organisations from undertaking energy audits and acting on the recommendations.
A key innovative feature of the SPEEDIER Service is the self-financing mechanism. This novel funding mechanism works by implementing simple no-cost actions first (e.g. raising energy awareness of staff or switching to a cheaper energy supplier), ring fencing the savings from these actions and using them to pay for low, medium or high cost energy efficiency measures and the continued services of the SPEEDIER Expert. The iterative cycle of implementing energy conservation measures, determining the savings against an agreed baseline, ring fencing those savings and reinvesting them into additional measures is the core innovative concept of the SPEEDIER Service that can be used in both SMEs and large enterprises. The concept is illustrated below and incorporates a revolving energy efficiency fund for each participating business that enables the removal of barriers relating to lack of capital or lack of access to finance and allowing deep energy efficiency upgrades to be funded.
