Construction BUSINESS

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) received a Special Achievement in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Award from Esri, a leading global GIS solutions provider, at its international conference in San Diego on June 29th.

SEAI GIS dramatically improves the accessibility of spatial data on renewable energy resources, including wind, geothermal and bioenergy. SEAI was the only Irish winner among 167 winning organisations from over 300,000 eligible candidate projects across agriculture, defence, transport and local government.

Commenting SEAI Chief Executive Jim Gannon said: “It is an honour for my colleagues in SEAI to receive this award. Ireland has an abundance of renewable energy resources that, used properly, can assist in our move to a low-carbon future. These rich environmental and spatial data resources will support critical decisions about the development of new sustainable energy schemes providing openly available decision-making tools for policy makers, developers and communities alike.”

SEAI’s GIS system was launched last year with intuitive features making it easier for users to gain insight into the potential value of existing and new sustainable energy projects, against the backdrop of some of the environmental designations and other constraints that may exist. People can find out about the suitability of a certain area of land for growing bioenergy crops, understand the potential for geothermal energy generation at a specific location or analyse wind speeds at possible new wind farm sites.