The Office of Public Works has been running an energy conservation campaign entitled Optimising Power @ Work, since 2010. The programme is essentially a behavioural change campaign involving staff from over 270 large Central Government buildings. Energy savings of over 20% per annum have been achieved, equating to over €6M p.a. cost savings.
Since 2017, in a joint programme between “Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment”, SEAI and the OPW, energy retrofits have been carried out in 70 Central Government buildings, with an additional 15 currently in progress. The retrofit projects have typically included lighting, boiler and controls upgrades but there have also been some building fabric upgrades. Heritage buildings have particular challenges but improvements are still possible, particularly to lighting and heating systems.