RTE
Summary
Dubliners have been given a chance to inspect the progress of Tallaght's pilot District Heating Scheme as part of the Dublin Climate Action Week.
The pipes which will carry hot water to buildings around the centre of Tallaght are still being laid but South Dublin County Council says it expects the system to be up and running by the end of March next year.
Most of the heat will come from an Amazon data centre close to the centre of Tallaght.
It will provide heat for the council headquarters at County Hall, the local library and to TU Dublin's Tallaght campus.
It will also service 133 affordable apartments to be built on public land in Tallaght and a 3,500 sq/m innovation centre hosting tech start-ups on the same site.
"Over the lifetime of the scheme there could be two to three thousand apartments served by this district heating scheme," South Dublin County Architect Eddie Conroy said.
The heat will be low carbon but not free, and people will have the usual heating controls in their homes. The charge will be around the same per kilowatt hour as gas, but it will become cheaper than fossil fuels as carbon taxes increase.
Mr Conroy said the scheme will save around 1,500 tonnes of carbon emissions in its initial phase, but that will ramp up as the scheme expands.
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