Currently, the development of the 4 pilot units in Wexford County, Ireland is underway. As of March 2021, Irish partner 3 Counties Energy Agency (3CEA) has provided project goal and specification documents to Wexford County Council (WCC) as well as a Lead Detail package to the sub-project partner, WCC. WCC is now to implement the necessary specifications into the building design, and particularly the thermal envelope.
3CEA have successfully convinced WCC to go for a timber frame construction (TFC) type that has the most potential to use renewable low carbon building materials. The goal is to reduce embodied CO2 emissions with this pilot, which could serve as an exemplary model for the upscaling process.
There is a difference in the house design of the WCC Project in comparison to the other Irish pilots, as an apartment building which results in a longer planning process than the other two projects. Specifically, obtaining the Department’s stage approvals takes longer for this building typology. This will result in a delay within the H4.0E timeline. The new date of substantial completion for the WCC pilot, which can only be estimated because of the current Covid-19 crisis, is August 2022. At the moment WCC is working on the planning process progress through stage 2 of the pilot building.
