Cork neighbours come together to install solar panels

Montenotte neighbours are saving money and the planet by coming together to install solar panels.

They formed a Solar Meitheal – a community-led initiative in Ireland where neighbours and local residents group together to purchase, plan, and install solar panels. Now a local councillor has encouraged more estates to get involved.

The term comes from the traditional Irish word ‘meitheal’, which describes neighbours gathering to help each other tackle big tasks.

Residents of Newtown Court in Grange joined forces previously to install solar panels and make substantial savings on their electricity bills, with households saving around €1,000 a year on electricity, and then turned to helping other estates replicate the model.

Resident Oliver Deasy, who served as projects co-ordinator, presented at a meeting in Mayfield set up by Green Party councillor Oliver Moran, and Merrion Court in Montenotte became the first northside adapter of the plan.

Mr Moran said: “The demand for solar among communities is absolutely huge right now. There’s a perfect storm of the cost of energy, households wanting to do something for climate action, and people knowing too that they need to build their own resilience against more shocks in the future.”

He explained: “The idea of a ‘solar meitheal’ is great for households to reduce their costs, but there’s also a sense of confidence-in-numbers when making a decision like this with neighbours.

“That sense of being able to share experience and knowledge informally and at a neighbourhood-level is really important.

“Our plan in Northside Solar is that we want to develop a re-usable model that we can roll from one estate to another as we engage with residents associations across the northside.

“Merrion Court was the first estate for us, next we moving to Montenotte Park. The idea is that we develop a re-usable pattern for every estate so that no-one needs to reinvent the wheel.”

Other northside residents associations interested in bringing a meitheal to their area are invited to get in touch, at corknorthsidemeitheal@gmail.com, he said.

The group is partnered with Northside Enterprise, who handle deposit and other private data. 

They are well-established social enterprise on the northside, founded by the parish priest in Ballyvolane, while SE Systems are also local, based at Dublin Hill, and also long established.

Mr Moran added: “We are also encouraging people to use local credit unions for loans if needed. The credit unions we’ve talked to are all very supportive and can offer friendly rates and early payments.”