Hundreds of homes in Co Offaly are set to benefit from surplus renewable electricity to heat their water cylinders for free.
It is part of a collaboration being rolled out by EnergyCloud, a social enterprise and supported by Amazon Web Services and Offaly County Council.
300 families living in social housing will benefit from the initiative, which will see residents receive free tanks of hot water from surplus renewable energy.
The families will soon have their homes equipped with a smart device.
The device uses surplus renewable energy, which would otherwise be wasted to heat immersion tanks.
Once it is in place and connected up to the network, it enables unused energy, generated by wind blowing at night-time, to be channelled to heat up domestic water cylinders for free.
The residents are told by text message when it is coming, as there is no guarantee of free surplus electricity on any particular night.
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When the alert comes, they are advised that if they leave their hot-water cylinder unheated - EnergyCloud will be able to turn it on and heat it up when the free power is available while they are asleep.
Speaking at the launch in Tullamore, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Peter Burke said the project feeds into the Government's wider policy plan of reducing dependence on fossil fuels.
"The Government has clear ambitions under the Climate Action Plan to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and utilise renewable energy as efficiently as possible" he said.
It is estimated that in the last three weeks alone, renewable wind energy was dispatched down with an approximate retail value of over €83 million.
"This is win-win-win as we are collectively creating solutions for surplus energy rather than simply switching off wind turbines and solar panels" said CEO of EnergyCloud Alan Wyley.
