Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 16 November 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Issues Facing Small Businesses: Discussion

Mr. Vincent Jennings:

On the retrofitting of refrigeration with doors, many of our fridges are open access. Europe and the US have moved to them all being fitted with glass. We could do that. Changes are coming in eight years relating to gas requirements and the like. Some of the retrofitting could not work, but I know one very large multinational company spent more than €4 million in recent times in retrofitting all their fridges. They did that in conjunction with the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, and the ESB's electricity network. They were not doing it just as a good experiment but because they knew it made sense. The UK convenience store body has done the numbers on it. We could retrofit where it is possible and where people do not want to buy new fridges or do not feel the need to throw out a perfectly good fridge. We have spoken with the Department and energy specialists on having this as part of the accelerated capital allowance because it would make sense for us to retrofit some of the fridges. It will not work for all but it will work-----

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