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Little did we know when campaigning for the Fingal energy standard in 2005-06 that Construct Ireland would have a direct impact on Ikea’s first Irish store. Driven by a combination of Fingal’s requirements and their own renewable energy policy, the Swedish retail giant has invested in the largest ground source heat pump installation in Ireland and the UK, along with a well-thought biomass system fed by an onsite waste stream and a host of other green measures, as John Hearne reports
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Little did we know when campaigning for the Fingal energy standard in
2005-06 that Construct Ireland would have a direct impact on Ikea’s
first Irish store. Driven by a combination of Fingal’s requirements and
their own renewable energy policy, the Swedish retail giant has
invested in the largest ground source heat pump installation in Ireland
and the UK, along with a well-thought biomass system fed by an onsite
waste stream and a host of other green measures, as John Hearne reports
Ikea Dublin finally opened in July after an extremely long and extremely complicated gestation period. To facilitate the construction of the Swedish retailer’s 301st store, there were legislative changes, a torturous planning process and major public infrastructural works that are still not complete. A two storey steel frame structure over a partially enclosed ground level parking area on a 12.6 hectare site, Ikea Dublin has a total floor area of 30,598 square meters. It is as popular as it is vast. On the Sunday prior to Construct Ireland’s visit, more than 5,100 people glided up the travelator into its huge blue and yellow bulk.
Everything about this development is big. The site incorporates the biggest ground source heat pump installation in Ireland or the UK. This looks after the bulk of the building’s space heating requirement, and the entire cooling load. Within the first month of opening, the store achieved recycling rates of 90 per cent thanks primarily to a biomass boiler fuelled exclusively from onsite timber waste. This boiler takes care of all of the store’s hot water needs, as well as providing space heating to those parts not taken care of by the heat pumps. A building energy management system controls these systems, the low energy lighting, together with an occupancy driven ventilation system. Up on the roof, a third of the rainwater is harvested and used in public toilets and for irrigation on landscaping around the site.
The entrance to Ikea’s first Irish store in Ballymun
“Frugalness in the use of resources has been part of our DNA from the very start.” says Charlie Browne, Ikea UK’s environment manager. “But when we sawed the legs off the first table in the 1950s, it wasn’t necessarily about environmental improvement, it was about the flat-pack concept; getting more tables to the marketplace with less cost…but then with the economies of scale, you’d get less trucks on the road, less emissions, less resources used.” With that frugality as a guiding principal, three years ago, the company developed an ‘IGR directive’ standing for Ikea goes renewable. This aims for 100 per cent renewable energy for electricity and heating/cooling, and is to be achieved by increased building energy efficiency measures, use of low/zero carbon systems alongside the purchase of green electricity. Cost reduction and resource efficiency usually pull in the same direction. However, to achieve the energy reductions sought in that directive, the company had to alter its investment protocols. “Normally, in putting capital expenditure together, most companies look at a three to five year payback. Ikea extended that to a nine year payback on renewables, specifically because they knew that the costs were high at the moment but we wanted to make that over-investment.” Browne points out that this decision would probably not have been possible if the company wasn’t in private hands. Shareholders don’t like long payback periods.
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Issue 1, Vol 5 Out Now
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