Ireland’s leading heating technology manufacturer Grant is proud to be supporting the Ulster University and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) in their RULET – Rural-Led Energy Transition – initiative aimed at reducing or eliminating the risk of low-income households being left behind in the transition to clean, smart, integrated energy systems.

The RULET initiative is part of the SPIRE 2 (Storage Platform for the Integration of Renewable Energy) project which is a €6.7 million EU-funded Interreg VA, cross border project which aims to evaluate, develop, and facilitate the wide-scale deployment of consumer-owned energy storage technologies, to operate profitably in the changing energy markets in Ireland and the UK.

Led by the Ulster University and the NIHE, RULET is focused on making the full benefits of smart energy technology available to the most vulnerable households in the western counties of Northern Ireland, a wind energy hotspot.

This includes the installation of the Grant hybrid heat pump system which has been specially designed for social housing.

Barry Gorman, national renewable sales manager at Grant, said: “We are delighted to be supporting the Ulster University and Northern Ireland Housing Executive in this initiative and helping to advance the deployment of renewables throughout Ireland and the UK.

"Our hybrid heat pump system allows a 6kW Grant Aerona³ R32 air to water air source heat pump to run in tandem with an existing boiler installation.

"Following basic energy efficiency upgrades carried out by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, the hybrid system will run at high efficiency using wind energy stored overnight and will help to significantly reduce fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions.”

The first part of the project aims to enable people to avail of agile tariffs – by running the Grant heat pumps to charge Sunamp heat batteries, when wind energy is available on the system, NIHE tenants will be able to avail of exceptionally low home heating prices.

Visit www.grant.eu for more information on Grant’s involvement in the Spire 2 project. Follow Grant on Facebook and Twitter @GrantIRL or Instagram @Grant_IRL.