Energy Efficient Solutions 2013/14

solutions The Practical Guide for Industry, Commerce and the Public Sector • 2013/14

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enerGy efficienT

Energy efficiency outlined welcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5-6

solutions

Standards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7-9

Editor: Tim mcmanan-Smith Tel: 07818 574308

Building Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12-13

tim.mcmanan-smith@i2ieventsgroup.com

Sales Director: Steve Swaine Tel: 07818 574300 steve.swaine@i2ieventsgroup.com

opinion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10-11 combined Heat & Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14-15 Behavioural change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16-17 lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18-19 Building controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20-21 Building Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22-23 Demand Side response. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24-25 european Targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26-27 compressed Air . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28-29 Heating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30-31

i2i events Group The Studios, 2 Kingdom Street, london, w2 6JG registered at Stationers Hall ISSn 0964 8321 Printed by Headley Brothers Disclaimer: opinions expressed by individual contributors may not necessarily be those held by the publisher. Although every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of information published – this should be used at the readers discretion.

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enerGy efficienT

Drives & motors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32-34

Energy efficient solutions compressed Air Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35 HVAc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36-37 metering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 monitoring & Targeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39-40 Sustainability reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 Voltage management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42

solutions

The PracTical Guide for indusTry, commerce and The Public secTor • 2013/14

Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 3

welcome

Welcome to Energy Efficient Solutions

W

elcome to the this year’s Energy Efficient Solutions, a guide that help industry, commerce and the public sector come to grips with what is happening in demand side energy and offers advice on how to reduce your energy use and ultimately costs. There is an awful lot happening within the energy market from a policy and legislative pint of view at UK and EU level and at a technology level also.

Technologies which have been around for a long time such as combined heat & power are set to come of age and users will reap the benefits of efficient heat and electricity production. Compressed air, Drives, lighting and many more technologies are moving forward and explained how they can fit into your strategy for energy saving.

Getting the right team in place and implementing a strategy that involves auditing, monitoring, benchmarking, technology implementation, reporting and verifying is an essential part of managing your energy use effectively. I hope you find the guide useful.

Tim McManan-Smith Editor tim.mcmanan-smith@i2ieventsgroup.com Tel: 07818 574308 4 | Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14

introduction

Energy efficiency has huge potential but won’t happen on its own At last it seems that the Government is taking notice when it comes to energy efficiency in the UK. However, it still has a long way to go to truly incentivize it and reap the enormous saving that are there for the country, businesses and individuals writes Tim McManan-Smith Continued on page 6

Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 5

introduction Continued from page 5

W

ith the inclusion of demand reduction in the electricity market reform as part of the Energy Bill and the Government’s energy efficiency strategy you could be forgiven for thinking that energy reduction has at last come of age. Energy saving in all of its forms whether it energy efficiency or energy conservation through behavioural change is indeed mentioned

by Government more than in the past and the Energy Efficiency Deployment Office must take some of the credit for this.

There seems to be an appetite for using energy efficiency to help with capacity problems. An amendment to the energy bill and specifically the capacity mechanism allows energy reduction to be counted as capacity. This means that it you could bid could energy reductions into the market in the same way that you could offer extra generation. Although in principle this may work it is not an initiative that will lead to permanent demand reduction as it is really just load shifting. A good thing in itself but it will not lead to the ‘22 power stations’ worth of energy savings that DECC says are out there.

Energy efficiency continues to be extolled at the highest level yet it is interesting to note that the in the 2020 EU targets renewable energy was a target (legally binding) while the energy efficiency one was an aim (jolly good if we can be bothered). Yet if this is the cheapest and easiest way to reduce carbon, and money, why is not promoted more? It is often argued that Energy efficiency hasn’t traditionally had subsidies because saving energy and reducing your cost base has always been seen as its own reward. However, because the target isn’t mandatory it will be missed, this just seems to be the way of things.

Jason Anderson, head of Climate and Energy at WWF European Policy Office, said: “The history of EU policy is littered with the corpses of voluntary targets that died of neglect.” He suggests that post-2020 climate and energy policy should include binding renewable energy and energy savings targets and will be more effective and less expensive than an approach based on greenhouse gas targets alone, supported by the EU ETS. Decarbonisation reduces the cost effectiveness of carbon savings through depressing the price of carbon.

Unless the cap in the cap and trade system is managed very well large reductions 6 | Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14

“The history of EU policy is littered with the corpses of voluntary targets that died of neglect.”

in one area will lead to the ability to not bother in other areas.

A recent survey of the readers of Water, Energy & Environment has shown a large appetite for (76%) for a negatwatt market.

A market could be set up to trade the ‘not using of power’ and thereby promoting energy reductions through added financial benefits. This market could be in the form of feed-in-tariffs for proven energy reductions or via more traded solutions.

The theory is excellent, however, there comes a number of concomitant problems chiefly proving a permanent reduction.

This is not easy. The rise of measurement & verification as a thorough methodology of proving an energy saving project is testament to the difficult that exists in this area. Absolute reductions in energy use could be due to business failure rather than energy efficiency. Equally are firms that prosper to be penalised or should we be measuring energy intensity? If we measure this and companies become more efficient per £ earned or per product manufactured will this lead to any overall energy reductions at all? Businesses that have done nothing to abate their energy use until now would be favoured by such a scheme whereas others that are champion of energy efficiency would be at a disadvantage.

It has advantages in that it is technology

agnostic and would simply pay for reduced energy consumption rather than specifying the exact method of how to reduce your electricity such as lamps or boilers. But there are many problems that need to be ironed out before decent incentives for energy efficiency are in place. So, at the moment we have to go with the fact that energy saving is its own virtue through its rapid payback periods and lower bottom line costs. California is often cited as an example of where economic growth and energy use have been decoupled. There are a number of complex reasons why this may be the case but the fact remains that unlike the rest of the US energy consumption per capita has remained static and industry has managed double its productivity since 1980 with twice as much economic output per kWh compared to the rest of the country.

Politicians want everybody in the UK to do energy efficiency while not overly focusing on it in policy or incentives. While it may be true to say that it is easy to justify saving energy on its own, there are times when if you really want people to do something en masse you need to make it more worth their while. Expecting people and businesses (particularly SMEs) to go ahead and analyze all of the data necessary and all of the available equipment and then implement and coherent effective energy reduction scheme proactively is a tall order.

Tim McManan-Smith Editor tim.mcmanan-smith@i2ieventsgroup.com Tel: 020 7728 4635

standards

Setting the standard for energy management Over recent years, the introduction of internationally-accepted standards has helped raise the bar for energy management as well as giving it a well-deserved credibility in the boardroom, as Alan Aldridge, executive director of the Energy Services and Technology Association, explains

W

hile energy policy is often described in terms of a ‘trilemma’ – the need to achieve sustainable, affordable and secure supplies going forward into the future – energy management has a much more direct ‘triple’ imperative: it can reduce bills, cut pollution and improve productivity.

Energy management as a skill has been around for a long time. Indeed, the first energy management ‘manual’ in the UK can be traced back to Oliver Lyle’s still-quoted publication of 1947, The Efficient Use of Steam. Since then, there

has been a great deal written on different aspects of the subject and, with the rate at which technologies have developed, the catalogue of publications, papers and manuals is steadily increasing.

So the challenge today is to find the best way of maximising value and achieving optimum energy performance. But that is easier said than done. How to compare the effectiveness of one approach with another, especially across different types and sizes of buildings with multiple uses?

In reality, a single solution is unlikely to work across all. But there still has to be

some kind of framework within which to position and manage different energy management activities.

In earlier years, individual energy managers would have devised their own strategies for coordinating activities and programmes. Some of these systems were very effective, but often they were not very comprehensible to others. In fact, to some more senior executives they could appear more a black art than a scientific, evidencebased activity.

Continued on page 9

Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 7

standards Continued from page 7 This very individuality has proved a barrier to wider uptake and acceptance of energy management as a profession.

While other managerial roles had widely accepted operational methodologies, energy management was falling behind. However, recently this has changed. Energy management has now come of age and is taking its place as a professional discipline governed by robust frameworks and reporting structures.

Best practice

Today, ISO 50001 is an internationally accepted and applied standard for best practice in energy management. In fact, much of the initiative for ISO50001 was born in the UK leading to European and then worldwide standards. ESTA has been closely involved in its development at all stages.

It builds on standards like the ISO 9000 Quality Systems family and on ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems.

Like them, it is based on some standard elements that anyone who knows these other standards will recognise. But ISO 50001 aims to help users to implement the processes necessary to understand baseline energy usage and then put in place action plans, targets and energy performance indicators in order to reduce consumption and prioritise further efficiency gains. It follows the familiar cycle of ‘Do, Check, Act’ ensuring that the management of energy is never a static once-and-for-all approach.

The standard is applicable across all types of building and processes and this makes it a very strong and effective tool.

As a framework built on the elements of other widely-used systems, it is much more comprehensible to a broad range of managers who may not have any specific training (or interest) in energy. Reporting to senior management then becomes easier as the concepts used are similar to those they would be familiar with. This can be invaluable when trying to make a case for more funds. The business case is immediately accessible rather than having to be ‘unpacked’.

Adopting a single standard also means that energy managers can move from one job to another, confident that they will find systems they can understand in their new role. The energy plan, then, belongs to the organisation rather than

the individual. Its continued success is not entirely dependent upon the continued presence of the individual who instigated it as others can take over the reins and continue to deliver on its targets.

But perhaps the most important benefit of ISO 50001 is the systematic approach it brings to energy management. Existing performance can be benchmarked and initiatives identified and prioritised.

The results can be compared across the estate – and indeed with other buildings.

Although only launched in 2011 (it grew out of BS EN 16001) it has been readily adopted by organisations across the public and private sectors, from Bentley Cars to the City of London Corporation and Southbank University. It is applicable to virtually every situation.

By using an established standard and a plan widely agreed, understood and welldocumented within your organisation, energy management is vested in the organisation rather than in one very individual, however capable. This is vital for continuity and achievement, as the organisation and the role of individuals will change over time.

Complementary tools

However, ISO 50001 is not a complete toolkit to effective control of energy performance. There are other standards, which apply to particular aspects of this discipline and these will add to the overall effectiveness of programmes. So for example BS EN 16247-1 on surveys and audits provides a robust and transparent means of assessing and benchmarking current energy performance. This is needed to identify clearly where improvements can be made. This standard will shortly be incorporated into an international (ISO) standard. ESTA, in conjunction with BRE, has published Energy surveys and audits: a guide to best practice to help end users understand its relevant scope and potential.

At the ‘other end’ of the process, the quantification of energy savings and an evaluation of the effectiveness of specific programmes and projects, the skills of Measurement and Verification are coming into their own. Once again, this is an area

which ESTA has championed. Studies have shown that one of the major barriers to winning funds for energy improvement projects is the inability to prove the worth of previous initiatives. We all know that energy efficiency works and that it delivers continued savings over time, with associated environmental benefits in terms of waste reduction and lower carbon emissions. Yet, typically, it is not those who understand energy efficiency that control the purse strings. Any bid for funding must be accompanied by a robust business case. So measuring the effectiveness of energy management projects and programmes is extremely important.

The International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP) is the de facto standard for the conduct of such evaluations. It is published by the Efficiency Valuation Organisation and is designed to promote transparency, completeness, objectivity, and conservativeness. ESTA is the lead organisation in the UK for IPMVP and can advise on available resources and training.

And being able to robustly evaluate performance is not just necessary for winning future funding. It is also vital in demonstrating that contractual consequences have been met. Essentially, though, rigorous evaluation enables the energy manager to discriminate between ineffective projects and those which deserve to be replicated. It can also help to identify projects which have failed because of some minor issue which can be readily resolved or those with greater flaws.

Standards are there to help structure and formalise best practice. Their use can help make a discipline such as energy management more credible but they should also make the manager’s job easier: they will help identify ineffective (or flawed) processes and practices and help achieve the best results in terms of reducing energy consumption, cutting bills and lowering emissions.

The Energy Services and Technology Association (ESTA) represents over 100 major providers of energy management equipment and services across the UK. For more details visit the website at: www.esta.org.uk Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 9

oPInIon

Government in a Pickles over energy policy The Prime Minister has set the challenge to his Cabinet: “I want Britain to be the most energy efficient nation in Europe”. Sadly it seems that one member is consistently working in precisely the opposite direction, says Andrew Warren, director of the Association for the Conservation of Energy

E

ric Pickles has been the Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government ever since the Coalition took office over three years ago. During that time, he has presided over, indeed sometimes personally made, a whole series of policy decisions which undermine David Cameron’s declared objective.

The litany of failure is as consistent as it is long. let me seek to enumerate just some of these failures where in each case mr. Pickles seems willfully to have sought to obstruct progress. This despite his having been the chairman of the conservative Party who promoted the catchphrase ‘Vote Blue, Go Green’.

He has undone effective policies he inherited. Back at the start of the century, the government and the building sector came together to agree a pathway to higher new building energy standards, at a time when ours were 25 years behind those adopted in european countries with similar climates.

In exchange for a roadmap providing relative certainty regarding timing and extent of change, the construction industry undertook to invest in the necessary training of operatives and product development, eventually to achieve zero (or very low carbon) carbon buildings.

The deal stuck. In 2006, and again in 2010 the improvements were made smoothly, and without discord or rancour. The next round of changes had been due to start next month, the final round before Zero carbon Homes were due to be introduced in 2016. Despite issuing a consultation document back in January 2012 promising these upgrades, they did not go ahead this April as expected.

Indeed 19 months after issuing the consultation, mr. Pickles still has not got round to announcing any decision at all. This is even despite the quite specific commitment made by the chancellor in his Budget back in march that industry would be told precisely what was happening some time during may. even when they do finally proceed, they will inevitably deliver far less than intended.

Although it has long been established that vast numbers of new homes fail to comply with the minimum building regulations standards, nobody at mr. Pickles’ department monitors compliance. Perhaps that is not 10 | Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14

surprising. over the past four years, policy monitoring research from his Department has dropped by two –thirds.

In contrast to this torpor, if you put on the market a washing machine or a refrigerator that doesn’t deliver the promised energy savings, BIS’ national measurement office can – and does – take out criminal proceedings against you. Such goods can cost just 1% of the price of a new home. Yet nobody has ever been prosecuted for failing to comply with the energy conservation parts of the building regulations.

The position is if anything worse with existing buildings. under new eu laws, all advertising for a building either sold or leased is supposed to include its A to G energy label. And each new occupant must receive details of the energy performance, and how it can be improved. A series of independent surveys have revealed that these legal requirements are seldom observed. Such is mr. Pickles’ department indolence that not only have they never troubled to monitor levels of compliance, they even omit to inform council trading standards officers of the need to monitor advertising requirements – thus ensuring that even the most diligent council officer helps breach the law.

An earlier eu directive had led to the introduction of display energy certificates in the foyers of 42,000 public buildings. renewed annually, and reflecting annual energy usage, they were stimulating big efficiency improvements. But since 2010 there has been no pressure to keep these updated, so many are failing to do so, in part because now mr. Pickles has also whimsically decided that smaller buildings need only renew every ten years. And he is perversely not requiring the commercial sector to display such useful certificates, but instead mandating that “in a prominent place” there will be details only of a building’s theoretical performance. An option requested by, and

welcomed by, absolutely no businesses at all.

Such idiocy occurred largely because mr.

Pickles refused to consult with anybody about how the final text of the new buildings directive should be implemented.

Perhaps it is because he knows that, even if he does run another public consultation, he may just as easily reverse his position entirely subsequently – even if 82% of respondents endorse his original proposal.

This is what happened in the case of his infamous “consequential improvements” consultation- a policy he now rejects, despite having claimed £11bn saving to the economy and the stimulation of 2.2m Green Deals.

It is a u-turn that has led to the council of my Association voting unanimously to go to the High court, seeking a judicial review of his perverse decision to abandon outright his earlier policy. He has yet to give any coherent reason for this complete volte face. other examples of bad faith include the refusal to permit any targets in the revised guidance for local authorities for the Home energy conservation Act (despite it being legal to do so); and the covert briefing to landlords that the outlawing under the energy Act 2011 of F and G rated properties after 2018 will never be implemented in practice, and even if implemented never monitored I am not qualified to form a judgment upon eric Pickles’ effectiveness in other areas of policy outwith that which directly affects the intelligent use of energy in buildings. For all I know, he may well be Demosthenes and Gandhi combined. what I do know is that to date his period in office has been an almost unmitigated disaster so far as the energy efficiency agenda is concerned. And certainly so far as helping achieving the Prime minister’s declared objectives for Britain.

As mr. cameron reminds us: “In a race for limited resources, it is the energy efficient that will win the race.” Perhaps mr. Pickles should be donning his running shoes PDQ.

Andrew Warren, Director Association for the Conservation of Energy westgate House, 2a Prebend Street, london n1 8PT Tel: +44 20 7359 8000 Fax: +44 20 7359 0863 Email: andrew@ukace.org Web: www.ukace.org

building performance

Occupant behaviour as an energy saving policy Energy Performance of Buildings is routinely much worse than expected. How can building users and occupants help to reduce energy use in buildings. CIBSE Technical Director Hywel Davies explains “…encouraging, persuading or incentivising people to do little things that add up to large energy saving. The key is that it all needs persuasion and encouragement, not just scheduling, programming or commissioning.”

R

egulation of the use of energy in buildings is not new, dating back to 1972 for energy conservation measures in homes and 1974 for nondomestic buildings. This led to Part L of the Building Regulations, which first appeared in 1985 under powers contained in the 1984 Building Act. This gave powers to the Secretary of State to make building regulations “for the purposes of securing the health, safety, welfare and convenience of persons in or about buildings…, [and] furthering the conservation of fuel and power”, enabling Part L Part L 1985 required “reasonable provision for the conservation of fuel and power”, with a simple Approved Document giving guidance on how to comply based on the elemental approach. Part L was updated in 1995 and then again in 2002, with CO2 targets. The 2003 Energy Performance of Buildings Directive was adopted required a whole building method for assessing carbon emissions of new buildings, which led to Part L 2006. This was the biggest change to energy conservation requirements in 12 | Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14

buildings in over 20 years, doing away with the elemental method and introducing carbon emissions targets for non-domestic buildings, rather than just energy efficiency requirements. Meanwhile, average energy use in buildings continued to rise.

One could be forgiven for thinking that with the ever increasing regulation of energy use in buildings we would see corresponding falls in actual energy use. But that is not what has happened. As central heating has become commonplace, we have seen a widespread tendency for levels of comfort to increase, and energy use with it. And to make matters worse, in the non-domestic sector it is now clearer than ever that there is a fundamental gap between the energy use as modelled for building regulations compliance purposes, and the actual energy use as measured by the utility meters and billed by the energy utilities.

This is because the energy uses considered at building regulations compliance stage and the actual energy used by the real activities that go on in a building once it is occupied are not aligned. In the UK, energy models are used at the design stage to compare design

options and to check compliance with Building Regulations. These energy models are not intended as predictions of energy use, although they are often, and mistakenly, used as such.

Meanwhile, numerous case studies show that actual energy use can be considerably higher than the results of the Building Regulations calculations. For example, CarbonBuzz (http://www.carbonbuzz.org) a joint initiative between CIBSE and RIBA, consistently finds that operational energy use is higher than that calculated to demonstrate compliance with Building Regulations.

Figure 1 shows a summary of the building energy use data on the CarbonBuzz website.

The graphs for each sector show the Building Regulations Approved Document L2A calculations (left bar) and the monitored energy use data (right bar). The numbers under the bars show the number of buildings in the sample.

So why is there such a difference between the Part L calculations and monitored energy use? Firstly, Part L uses standard inputs for variables such as the hours of operation.

building performance

Figure 1: Energy use for compliance calculations and actual measured energy use.

(Numbers denote the sample sizes). Source: www.carbonbuzz.org This is unavoidable for compliance checking, since the alternative, to use the expected hours, would penalise longer hours of use, which is perverse. But secondly, the Part L calculations exclude energy uses such as small power, external lighting, lifts and escalators. They also exclude diagnostic equipment in healthcare buildings, and machinery related to business use in offices or factories or shops. These uses are often referred to as unregulated energy loads.

Figure 2 shows a comparison of the energy use included in the Part L calculations and the monitored energy use after 5 years of operation. This demonstrates a significant gap between the design compliance calculation and the actual energy use, which has become known as the performance gap.

Some of this gap is simply because at the design stage we are not counting all the potential uses of energy. With clients paying increasing attention to this gap, it should be possible to identify the likely major unregulated energy uses, and to calculate them.

But this is not the whole story. As well as the exclusion of various uses from the compliance calculations, there are two other issues – the way the building is set up, and the people who use the building.

Setting a building up correctly is vital, but unfashionable. Setting systems to work when needed, and go off when not needed, and to operate only when the occupants are in, and not through the night, may seem obvious, but the evidence suggests it isn’t.

Correct control schedules and systems that default to off are the exception, not the rule.

Occupants also have a huge impact on building energy use. They can leave lights on, leave small appliances running, or adjust any controls that are not locked away. These all add to power use. Yet with a limited investment in encouraging energy efficient behaviour, coupled with monitoring and feedback of the results, it is possible to cut energy use significantly. In one recent case study, British Land demonstrated energy reductions of almost 40% from a programme

Figure 2: Comparison of ADL2A calculations and operational performance for a case study.

Source: CIBSE of measures, mainly behavioural and changing the schedules to avoid equipment running when it is not needed.

A number of other examples show that encouraging, persuading or incentivising people to do little things that add up to large energy saving. The key is that it all needs persuasion and encouragement, not just scheduling, programming or commissioning.

It needs an investment in the people using the building to win them over and then to

keep their engagement. The technical aspects are, relatively, the simple element. Changing behaviour is a little like painting the Forth Bridge, just when you think you have finished, you have to go back to the beginning and start again. But it can deliver substantial savings over the life of a building, or, even, the life of a building management contract.

For more information please visit: www.cibsecertification.co.uk For more information visit the Carbon Buzz website, www. carbonbuzz.org CIBSE will shortly be producing new guidance on Evaluating operational energy use at the design stage.

Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 13

combined heat & power

The place for CHP in a changing energy system There has always been a problem promoting generation of both heat and electricity from a local source when the whole system has been set as a centralised entity. Now with the Government’s recent heat strategy paper it acknowledges the benefits for massively increased efficiencies if look towards local integrated systems of CHP rather than looking at them separately

F

or the last few decades, energy provision across Europe has largely taken a centralised approach.

The UK built large central power stations, designed to take advantage of economies of scale. The energy user was a passive customer, buying gas or electricity via a centrally managed system. This centralised system created silos within it, with energy efficiency, generation, heat and electricity demand all supplied and considered separately.

This model continued through the 1990s and early 2000s, even as privatisation took hold. In a centralised system with large plant, passive consumers and a fragmented approach to energy use, CHP was always going to struggle; it did not fit into the culture or the economics of the system However, we are now on the cusp of a significant shift which is impacting the way the energy markets operate. New, smaller generators are entering the market and consumers are becoming more aware of their energy use. This is seen starkly in Germany, where the growth in decentralised CHP and renewable generators is substantially reducing the operational hours of centralised power stations.

When consumers take greater control of their energy use and production, it undermines the economic case for the construction and operation of central power stations. In addition, consumers consider their energy needs in the round, demand with generation, heat and electrical needs. The result is that the traditional silos, such as energy use and production, are brought together.

This change in the market also includes an increase in small scale CHP, a result of consumers’ increasing concern about their energy costs, seeking out ways to have 14 | Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14

more efficient operations. CHP meets a consumer’s need for heat and electricity in one process, which is significantly more efficient than separately generating electricity from a power station and heat from a boiler. Because of this efficiency, CHP units tend to use up to one third less fuel than separate heat and power generation. As heat cannot be transported over huge distances, compared to traditional power plants CHP plant are smaller, decentralised and located next to the heat user; the complete opposite of the large centralised legacy we have now.

At the smaller scale, below about 5MW electrical output (sufficient for a large hospital or university) a strong CHP market is seeing commercial and public sector users looking for ways to insulate against the rising cost of electricity through highlyefficient, onsite generation. Public sector sites such as Guy’s hospital and Warwick University, where there is a significant and stable heat and power demand onsite, are ideal for such CHP units.

These and similar sites gain value from the efficiency benefit of CHP, ensure secure heat supplies, and also help avoid rising electricity bills. While many CHP users export their excess electricity, earning additional revenue, at this small scale consumers generally find the cost and complexity of selling power on the wholesale electricity market too high.

Therefore, they usually only install units to meet the onsite electricity demand and do not export. The additional advantage of these plants is that they are less impacted by current energy policy changes and uncertainty.

A major future opportunity for smaller and medium scale CHP may be opened up through the implementation of the Government’s recently published heat strategy. This strategy identifies heat

networks, or district heating, as a key infrastructure for meeting the heating needs of consumers in urban areas and meeting the UK’s low carbon aspirations. A growth in UK heat network infrastructure will help create an increasingly stable heat demand, helping to both de-risk investment in CHP and open up a major new market for heat generation. The heat strategy commitment to provide funding support for Local Authorities to bring their heat network plans to fruition may prove to be a key driver in facilitating a growing CHP market, including renewable, energy from waste and gas-fired plant.

The larger scale CHP market is dominated by power exporting plant

combined heat & power

Southampton General Hospital combined heat and power unit .

Last year it started a new 15-year contract with Dalkia that will provide a further £2.5million upgrade and will include 2MWE CHP from specialist CHP division, Cogenco usually based on industrial sites with large steam demands for use in industrial processes such as the chemicals, refining and paper sectors. These facilities are heavily impacted by new energy regulations, such as the new carbon tax and the removal of a CHP exemption under the Climate Change Levy. This regulatory and tax burden, combined with substantial uncertainty created by the Government’s ongoing Electricity Market Reform process is holding back this market’s potential.

The welcome publication of the heat strategy opens up the prospect that the current limits on this large-scale market may be lifted. The heat strategy recognises

that efficient industrial CHP is key to reducing emissions while improving UK industry’s competitive position, and commits the Government to create a dedicated policy on CHP for the first time.

Over the coming months, industry will be working with the Government to develop its CHP policy so that it will enable a new wave of investment in highly efficient CHP systems.

Through the framework put in place by

the heat strategy, the UK will increasingly take advantage the value of small-scale CHP, heat networks and larger industrial CHP. By doing so, the UK will be facilitating the shift change in energy production away from centralised plant and towards one that puts power in the hands of consumers, the ones who understand their energy needs best.

The CHPA is the leading advocate of an integrated approach to delivering energy services using combined heat and power and district heating. For more information see:www.chpa.co.uk

Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 15

behavioural change

Energy staff awareness campaigns – getting your colleagues on board There is a much greater chance of reducing energy costs in the workplace if everyone in the organisation thinks about energy on a regular basis. Mounting an effective staff awareness campaign can help to influence change and transform both the organisation and behaviour of its staff to become more energy efficient

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ealth and safety regulations impose legal obligations on companies and their employees.

There are no such legal obligations for energy efficient behaviour within the workplace, which means it has to be driven by developing the right organisational culture. To do this, there needs to be an understanding of the workplace and what will motivate your colleagues to be energy efficient.

In addition to top-level commitment, the strategy must include engagement with staff at all levels, from the Chief Executive to the part-time worker. This means making employees aware of the importance of saving energy, both for the organisation and for their own working conditions.

Often people do not understand the part they can play in energy saving. They either do not recognise how they can contribute – where and how they can save energy – or are simply not motivated. The way to overcome some of these barriers is to give colleagues a sense of responsibility

for energy usage. There are a number of methods that can be used, such as talking to staff or producing publicity material and disseminating this via notice boards or newsletters. Establishing one or more energy champions throughout the organisation and circulating up-todate energy performance figures in a language easily understood helps to make staff more aware of energy matters.

One of the most successful ways of improving motivation is to offer recognition for savings made and this is even better if some kind of incentive or reward can be made as a bonus. Savings could be maximised by introducing some form of inter-departmental or intersite competition. This often helps to create a positive goal and promote a team spirit amongst the participants.

It can also attract positive publicity – the more people that are aware, the greater the chance of reducing energy costs.

Overcoming resistance

Changing to a more energy efficient culture means people inevitably have to modify ways of working. The energy manager must therefore be prepared for some resistance and reluctance to adapt. Lasting energy savings rely on everyone in the organisation working in an energy efficient manner.

Trying to force people to change their habits rarely works, and could cause greater resistance to change. Instead make a point of demonstrating the benefits of change – one solution is to offer training in simple energy management, including one practical element that all staff can adopt.

Many organisations have successfully improved workplace culture by showing staff how to save energy costs at home.

People are more likely to change their behaviour if they understand how their actions affect energy consumption, cost and the impact on the environment. Staff

behavioural change

engagement brings energy savings about in two ways: when people adapt their everyday performance and by the ideas they generate. Workforce engagement can be a relatively low-cost activity compared with the level of savings achieved, but it needs to be carefully managed to achieve long-term results.

Keeping up the momentum

People solutions are an essential ingredient within an integrated energy management strategy. The scope for making energy savings through people can be assessed by conducting simple walkabouts, looking for additional opportunities to save energy by good housekeeping.

Surveys might be an effective way of assessing attitudes and the current level of motivation. It is also important to test knowledge and awareness. Some people when surveyed say they would be more motivated if they knew what they could do, whilst others have a much higher level of awareness of what to do but are not motivated or empowered to take actions. Meeting on a one-to-one basis or in groups provides another useful way of finding out about attitudes because they can help stimulate thoughts and views which might not be expressed in a survey.

The key to maintaining momentum in

the long-term is to identify the existing procedures within your organisation and integrate energy awareness into the different policies and systems.

The longer the activity runs the better engrained the messages will become in your colleagues’ minds and the more likely it will be to effect a lasting change in the organisational culture. It is also important to make sure any messages you disseminate do not become stale. You may prefer to undertake a few activities at a time, such as staff briefings and email campaigns. Other organisations may wish to consider running an ‘Energy Week’ every year as a continuous investment rather than a ‘one off’ campaign.

Comparing the energy consumption of your site/organisation with that of similar businesses may give an indication of the potential for energy saving and provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of measures to be adopted. The overall energy management objectives should be published including a statement of the

policy, the desired outcomes or results and an indication of how outcomes will be measured. To sustain continued success you should regularly feedback to staff the progress that is being made. Carefully listening to ideas and comments from your colleagues about suggestions and ideas to save energy will give you vital feedback on how engaged they are and how well the activity is going.

Chris Burgess CEng MEI is a tutor on the Energy Institute (EI)’s energy management training programme. Mounting an Effective Staff Awareness Campaign is one of the modules of the EI’s new eLearning course on energy management.

The first module of this course is free of charge and tackles the role of an energy manager, developing an energy policy and investment in energy efficiency including calculating payback periods. For more information, please visit www.energyinst. org/energy-management

The Energy Institute (EI) is the professional body for the energy industry, delivering good practice and professionalism across the depth and breadth of the sector.

For more information, please visit: www.energyinst.org/energy-management Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 17

lighting

Lighting the future With LEDs now becoming an efficient and accepted part of the lighting landscape the LIA has put in place a scheme to ensure quality levels are kept high as a bad first experience can kill a new technology before it has had time to take off. Better control is also developing rapidly and will lead to further savings and quality improvements for the end user

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ne can hardly pick up a magazine these days without seeing a reference to LEDs and there is no doubt that they are bringing about the biggest change in the way we light our environment since Edison and Swan. The adoption of LED technology has seen some real momentum in recent months and 2013 looks like being the year that brings a sea change in the pace of that adoption as prices continue to fall and efficiency and quality continues to improve. A quick look around the industry exhibition, ‘LuxLive’ last November suggested that over 90% of the products on show were LED and there is scant evidence of manufacturers investing significant R&D capital in older technologies. It is widely forecast that 80% of lighting will be LED by 2020.

This comes at a good time for the industry and its customers who are under increasing pressure to reduce energy consumption. Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), despite their improvements in recent years, remain largely unloved by the consumer and there is a genuine good-will towards LEDs which appear to address the perceived problems associated with CFLs. The problem is that good quality LEDs are not cheap to produce and so there has been an emergence of new players in the market importing low grade LEDs which in many cases do not meet their claims.

It is important for the adoption of any new technology that the first experience end-users have is a good one, which is why the Lighting Industry Association is working in conjunction with the National Measurement Office (the UK authority charged with policing the ErP Directives, RoHS etc) to carry out a comprehensive market surveillance project testing 1000 retrofit LED lamps. Apart from seeing the removal of non-compliant poor quality lamps from the market we hope to highlight the value of buying from reputable suppliers such as LIA members who adhere to a strict Code of Conduct.

The Government’s flagship policy for

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improving the energy efficiency of the UK building stock is the Green Deal and Lighting and controls for commercial premises are included as a measure but not for domestic properties. With lighting providing one of the fastest paybacks of any measure, work is at hand to persuade DECC that excluding domestic properties is a missed opportunity.

2013 will also see the entry into force of the new ErP Directive for directional lamps and LEDs which maps out a programme for phasing out the least efficient products much as was done for non-directional lamps over the last 5 years.

So what of the future for lighting?

LEDs continue to deliver increased light using less energy and as manufacturing becomes more sophisticated so the control of the colour of white LED light becomes more consistent. The lifetime of many LEDs can be 30,000 hours, or considerably more depending on the application, which in commercial installations can significantly reduce the maintenance costs and is a major factor to take into account when considering the business case for change. Add to this tax break initiatives such as the Carbon Trust’s Enhanced Capital Allowance scheme and the argument gets stronger still.

As our light sources become electronic, so is the way we control them. We will see more emphasis on controls such as presence detectors and daylight controls which have the potential to improve energy savings by a further 30% or more.

Wifi is coming to lighting too with the first lamps with this feature appearing last year and with it the potential to individually control any lamp or group

of lamps at the touch of your phone. As lighting joins the ‘internet of things’ we can look forward to lights that talk to each other and can sense the approach of an occupant for example in a corridor where lights will gradually brighten ahead of you and dim again as you pass.

Further technological developments are focussing on health, well-being and even productivity which can be improved through the use of subtle colour changes to complement our biological rhythms.

As Local Authorities consider switching off street lighting to save energy the lighting industry is already able to offer intelligent solutions that not only improve the quality of the lit environment but save energy as well.

As luminaire manufacturers get to grips with the new technology we will see a change in the products that light our environment too. No longer are designers constrained by the physical size of a lamp as LEDs arrive in miniature in the form of strips, coin sized modules and a myriad of other incarnations. As LED life increases we can look forward to fittings where the light source is integral with the fixture and might not need replacing. New work on creating a common interface for LEDs will mean that as the technology continues to improve we can upgrade our lighting with ease. Smaller, slimmer more attractive designs are possible.

Lighting currently consumes nearly 20% of worldwide electricity production and the LED and controls revolution is ready to cut this demand dramatically while at the same time improving the lit environment and reducing costs.

The Lighting Industry Association’s mission is to strengthen the industry and promote the benefits of good quality lighting by representing all aspects of UK, EU and international legislation and standards at the highest level whilst protecting the interests of both the public and members.

Email: info@thelia.org.uk Website: www.thelia.org.uk

building controls

Building controls and end users a two-way street to energy efficiency Ian Ellis explains how controls and end users can influence each other for better long-term energy efficiency

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here can be little doubt that building controls and building energy management systems (BEMS) are key to saving energy in today’s commercial and public sector buildings. The Carbon Trust says that poor control of heating, ventilation, cooling and lighting is responsible for excessive energy consumption in many buildings.

In its Building controls technology overview (CTV032), the Trust estimates that in premises with well-controlled systems, heating bills can be 15% to 34% lower than in poorly controlled buildings.

Similarly, operating an air conditioning system without good control can result in higher energy costs. For every degree that the system deviates from the required temperature, energy costs can rise by 5%.

The BCIA publication, Controls for End Users, produced with BSRIA and the Usable Buildings Trust, states: “Better controls are an important way of saving energy and reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Usually they are a more cost-effective way of saving energy than adding renewable energy systems.”

There are other advantages to a wellcontrolled building that include lower building services maintenance, because equipment does not operate when not required. A BEMS can also help to schedule maintenance before equipment breakdown becomes an issue.

However, there is one crucial aspect of building controls and BEMS that is often overlooked - that they require the active participation of building managers and occupants to maximise their potential benefits. These groups can have an enormous influence on the efficacy of controls; and good building controls can also influence occupant behaviour to make it more energy efficient.

As Controls for end users states: “Control interfaces are where users and the technology of a building come together.”

If we think about our own experiences of daily life in an office building, the amount of control we have over our local working environment can have a big impact on 20 | Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14

how we feel about that space.

When building controls are procured and applied intelligently, they can have a positive influence on occupant behaviour.

For example, occupant surveys suggest that the faster a building responds to human needs, the better occupants like it. Controls must therefore show a response to use that is timely, detectable and in the right direction. A lack of these characteristics gives rise to user behaviour such as turning a thermostat to the extreme to achieve quicker response (for example, turning the thermostat all the way to 35˚C to warm the space faster).

Perhaps more significantly, studies show that buildings with good local controls are more energy efficient because systems are more likely to operate only when occupant need them. Equipment is more likely to be used correctly if occupants understand how to use the building controls.

Of course, one solution could be to centralise all control, and remove the responsibility for using controls from occupants altogether. However, the Usable Building Trust has shown clearly that local control is very important for occupant satisfaction. Furthermore, people feel that they can solve local issues such as temperature or lighting, much faster with

local controls. Complete centralisation of controls is therefore rarely found in modern buildings.

Good local control requires early consideration of building controls in the design of a building. Ensuring that occupants can understand the controls needs early planning and involvement of controls professionals to provide advice on the best control strategies. Clients seldom think to ask for ‘usable controls’, and they can underestimate the effort required to deliver high levels of functionality and usability.

But achieving good control of a building is a two-way street. While controls enable users to influence their working environment, the BEMS also offers information that must be acted upon to achieve long-term energy efficiency.

Building controls may be key to energy efficiency, but they are not a fit-and-forget solution.

Most buildings are now fitted with significant levels of metering, but simply collecting information on energy use is not sufficient to reduce waste. Data must be considered and acted upon. Energy management, not simply measurement, is an ongoing process of collecting data, analysis and responsive adjustment.

building controls

The BCIA refers to this as the BEMS life cycle. The first steps are to examine building services equipment and turn it off or turn it down if possible. It is not uncommon for plant to be running unnecessarily, particularly where a time schedule has been overridden.

Unfortunately, alarms on the BEMS can sometimes remain ignored for some time - it is crucial for the facilities team to respond to these as soon as possible.

Today’s building energy management systems can provide very useful information on building performance.

Reports and graphs can show exactly when and where energy is being used.

Analysis of this data can show what is normal operation for a particular building - and where these parameters are being broken. For example, is lighting on when not required? Is heating operating at weekends when the building is unoccupied? Only by working actively with the BEMS, can occupants hope to find out about actual building performance.

Building owners and managers can also use the BEMS to inform investments in energy efficiency. The BEMS will provide before-and-after data which will show energy saved as a result of these investments. Useful information can

be found in the British and European Standard EN15232, which offers detailed information on the impact of elements of control on energy efficiency in nondwellings.

One of the most effective, and relatively simple, strategies to consider is demandcontrol. Controlling the energy supply based on room demand is one of the most cost-effective ways to achieve energy efficiency. If lighting and ventilation are not used unless a space is occupied, this can result in significant energy savings.

With today’s control technologies, retrofitting of occupancy sensors is highly cost-effective.

By actively engaging with the BEMS, building managers can see major improvements in energy efficiency.

Regular commissioning improves energy efficiency. Simple steps such as ensuring that parameters are not left in override

mode can save enormous amounts of energy waste. Also, building use can change over time; today’s buildings have to be very flexible. This can also affect energy use, even with apparently trivial issues such as a photocopier being moved to a position under a temperature sensor which can result in cooling running when not required.

By adding energy efficiency measures such as demand control to this regular monitoring, a building can achieve impressive levels of energy efficiency over the long-term. There can be little doubt that well-planned and installed building controls can influence occupant behaviour for the better, but it is equally true that occupant behaviour and active engagement has a major influence on the effectiveness of building controls and BEMS.

The Building Controls Industry Association represents the interests of a wide range of businesses in the building controls industry. With its specialised programme of training, education and marketing, the BCIA upholds high standards of performance for organisations and individuals.

Ian Ellis is President of the Building Controls Industry Association (BCIA). For more information see www.bcia.co.uk Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 21

building services

It is not all about the technology Most commercial building owners assume renewable and low carbon technologies will solve their energy problems, but, as David Frise*explains, it’s not as simple as that

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he country is facing a critical energy shortage. Our ageing coalfired power stations are being shut down removing 11% of our total power generation capacity over the next three years. Attempts to replace capacity with new nuclear power stations and renewables are a long way behind schedule.

Shale gas will play a part, but it will not change the game the way it has in the US. Energy is becoming a precious commodity with all the associated costs to commercial building owners and operators. The energy marketplace is extremely volatile and political, which means gas and electricity bills are only going in one direction – up.

Addressing energy demand in buildings is, therefore, becoming an urgent business priority and this puts the building engineering sector in prime position.

However, energy efficient strategies are poorly understood by most commercial building operators. There is a tendency to focus on technologies and assume that adding renewables or upgrading to energy efficient products will solve the problem.

Sadly, in too many cases, it actually makes the problem worse by overcomplicating things.

Strategy

The key element is integration. How do new technologies work with old? How are they operated? What is the overall control strategy for the building? Having a properly thought through energy management plan means renewables might not be required at all.

The big complication is that every building is a prototype. The wide range of factors involved, including site location; orientation; size; purpose; number of occupants; technologies used, mean every new or refurbished building presents a different set of challenges to its designers and ultimate operators.

While car manufacturers have mastered the art of combining components from various suppliers into a pretty seamless product, building engineers are battling to make boilers from Germany work with control systems from Scandinavia; and solar panels from China integrate with 22 | Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14

pipework systems forged by various suppliers all over the UK and Europe.

Manufacturers of individual building services technologies can justify claims about their own product under laboratory testing conditions, but they cannot make any promises at all about how something is going to work once it is installed in a building. Their product is just one of many system components and the secret is to keep things as simple as possible and to consider the outcome at the very start of the process.

It is very easy to over-complicate, particularly with the range of technology alternatives now on offer.

The new systems being deployed to meet climate change targets can be more difficult for users to understand and the way these systems work in tandem with a building’s envelope can also be critical.

Bringing all the elements together to deliver systems that complement each other is the increasingly important and skilled task of building engineering services contractors.

However, the ongoing recession has really tightened up budgets for building projects and there are a lot of projects being specified purely on lowest cost.

Choosing a contractor solely on price could actually be much more expensive in the long run because, if they go in with a low price just to win work, they will cut corners and the eventual outcome is unlikely to be fit for purpose. This will, inevitably, lead to higher running costs for the building owner.

Cutting corners is often disguised behind the term ‘value engineering’, which has a nice ring to it, but actually has very little to do with value. It is just a euphemism for taking things out of the design to get the cost down. With prices constantly under pressure, quality suffers and procurers should be very wary of dramatic changes in specifications that are clearly just desperate attempts to meet unrealistically low budgets.

Sub-economic tendering has been a hugely damaging aspect of building engineering contracting for decades now.

The recession of the early 90s forced prices down and the industry has struggled

to recover ever since. The knock-on impact of winning work on zero or tiny profit margins has been low investment in training and skills; plus low levels of innovation.

Profit

Clients should be worried if their contractor suppliers are struggling to make a profit. How will they invest in the necessary training and skills to deliver a properly integrated building if they are simply fighting to stay afloat? Where are they getting their labour from? The impact on quality can be extremely damaging and it is the end client who pays the price.

Profit is not a dirty word.

The whole building supply chain is in a very dangerous place right now. Clients want to spend less; consulting engineers want the work so will take a cut in fees; contractors try to change specifications wherever possible to boost their meagre profit margins; and manufacturers play along with this by supplying the cheapest option to avoid losing the order. This is not a good scenario for building clients looking to save energy.

This picture is complicated by the fact that some bona fide firms feel forced to bid for work at very low prices just to keep their skilled engineers employed. They

building services

are gambling on prices rising again in the future and taking a tactical hit now to keep their workforce in place – very risky.

The challenge for clients is differentiating between those firms, who are capable of providing a skilled service because they have invested in skills, and those that will try to squeeze cost out of the project and walk away as soon as they can leaving them to pick up the long-term price of inflated running costs.

Many contractors who charge ‘bottom dollar’ will have little interest in what happens to a building project in the longterm. Yet, client experience shows time and again that having an ongoing relationship with a contractor is key to getting best lifecycle performance from your systems.

Any contractor worth his wages should offer the end client a ‘soft landing’

service where the handover and ongoing operation of a building project is just as important as the initial construction stage.

This way they can ensure any energy saving strategy is followed through with ongoing commissioning, service and maintenance.

Operating a building for 20 years costs, on average, three times as much

as building it in the first place so there is a big financial incentive for owners and occupants to get their energy management strategy right by specifying services integration. However, it does mean specifiers need to take a long-term view and adjust their capital budgets appropriately.

*David Frise is head of sustainability at the Building & Engineering Services Association (B&ES).

B&ES is the UK’s leading trade association for building services engineering contractors. Founded in 1904. The B&ES represents the interests of firms active in the design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of heating, ventilating, air conditioning and refrigeration (hvacr) products and equipment. www.b-es.org Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 23

demand side response

The year of the customer?

Government has finally woken up to the power of demand side benefits*

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s 2015 likely to prove the “Year of the Customer”? Let’s hope so as time seems to be running out from the supply side as far as keeping the lights on and the gas flowing are concerned.

Several of our stalwart coal stations have generated their last recently having used up their EU allocated running times while much of what should have been sanctioned in terms of new generating plant to replace them has proved slow to get out of the stocks.

Hopefully the new Energy Act with its contracts for differences and feed in tariff support mechanisms will finally get investment going. But the mega projects such as nuclear and carbon capture and storage have suffered near terminal delays and can only now start to play their part in the early 2020s at the best.

Fortunately it takes two to tango and keeping demand and supply in balance in the gas or electricity markets means just what it says. While most Whitehall brainpower within the long drawn out Electricity Market Reform (EMR) exercise has been exerted on the supply side, Government, thank goodness, seems finally to have woken up to the benefits customer actions can play on reducing demand.

Indeed if it were not for the destructive effects on demand caused by the Credit Crunch and the Sovereign Debt Crisis, we would almost certainly have seen the blackouts and brownouts we are told are only a few years away. (Or perhaps the necessary investment would have come forward sooner as Government would have been unable to procrastinate for so long, allowing EMR to wind its tortuous way around Whitehall for the past three years).

So three cheers for the demand side measures added to the Energy Bill in June before it left the Commons for the Lords and following DECC’s somewhat hasty consultation on Electricity Demand Reduction. Business, the consultation concluded, could save up to 30TWh a year from cost effective measures which could be introduced to incentivise permanent demand reductions. This compares with around 200TWh used each year by industry, commerce and the public sector and compares well with our own survey earlier this spring which identified that

24 | Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14

over 70% of participating businesses believe they can cut their energy consumption by at least 15%.

Demand reduction, of course, has been a traditional feature of the winter power landscape with most larger customers aware that their full year’s transmission charges depend on how much they are found to be using during the three highest half-hour demand periods on the national system separated by at least ten days. Triad warnings and load shedding between 4:00pm and 7:00pm on winter weekdays are now complemented by National Grid’s STOR scheme to boost short term operating reserve by encouraging customers to trim their demand when the system is under duress What’s new, and marks an important first for larger customers, is government acknowledgment that permanent reductions in demand are as valuable as creating additional extra generation capacity. Following their Electricity Demand Reduction Assessment, DECC have chosen the new capacity market to provide the vehicle for rewarding customers for permanently reducing consumption. Larger users, it is thought, could be acknowledged individually while the actions of smaller users could be aggregated and then bid into the market.

There is much work to be done and a pilot scheme for incentivising permanent demand reductions through payments from the capacity market is pencilled in for next year. Many issues need to be resolved before the scheme goes live in 2015. For example how can a permanent demand reduction be identified and verified? And how can the scheme avoid rewarding customers for savings they would have made anyway?

So it’s a case of more news later. But what we can take comfort from are that the days when the customer’s role was seen as confined to signing the cheques seem now to be coming to an end. *Andrew Buckley, DG, MEUC Find out more about how we help industrial, commercial and public sector organisations buy and use their energy, water and report for their carbon.

Tel: 020 8997 3854 www.meuc.co.uk

DECC have chosen the new capacity market to provide the vehicle for rewarding customers for permanently reducing consumption

european targets

Indicative national energy efficiency targets fall short of 2020 target The EU is set to miss its 2020 energy efficiency targets. When this is one of the cheapest and easiest methods of reducing carbon it is strange that the target is not mandatory when renewable generation which is a comparatively expensive way to decarbonise is legally binding. The Coalition for Energy Savings believes that because the EU target is not in reach, it shows that the voluntary approach to targets has failed

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n assessment of national energy efficiency targets created by the Coalition for Energy Savings shows that Member States are proving reluctant to step up their ambitions beyond the minimum efficiency measures required by the Energy Efficiency Directive, holding the EU back from reaching its 20% energy savings target by the 2020 deadline.

The eighteen targets available do not reduce the gap to the EU’s 20% energy savings target and if the remaining nine country targets are of similar ambition the EU would only realize 17% energy savings, falling short of the target by 62 Mtoe – nearly the annual energy consumption of Belgium.

A ranking of the eighteen available targets compared to the most recent

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energy projections show that Slovakia, Belgium, Ireland, Greece and Italy lead the field with targets that require significant additional energy savings.

The least ambitious are Estonia, Finland, Malta, Romania and Portugal, who reported targets that increase the gap and eventually require no additional energy efficiency action.

The largest countries, Germany, France and the UK, set minimal targets that are likely to be achieved anyway by the measures under the Energy Efficiency Directive, like the annual 1.5% energy end - use saving obligation. “It is encouraging that a number of countries that face serious economic challenges have chosen in favour of energy efficiency, which

european targets will help them reduce their energy bills and energy trade deficits, create new jobs and increase their competitiveness”, said Stefan Scheuer, secretary general for the Coalition for Energy Savings.

“However, large Member States are not showing leadership and the EU target is not in reach, signs that the voluntary approach to targets has failed. Rapid repair will be necessary to avoid damaging the EU’s commitment to its biggest energy resource – energy savings.”

Member States were supposed to submit their national targets to the European Commission by 30 April, the first deadline under the Energy Efficiency Directive, and to date, information on what was reported has been kept tightly under wraps.

The Coalition only managed to obtain information from 18 countries, using information from National Reform Programme reports and intelligence from national contacts.

“The secrecy and lack of transparency in setting these targets excluded national and EU stakeholders from what should be an open and inclusive process”, said Scheuer.

In order to help stakeholders and Member States achieve the full 20% EU target and reap the economic and environmental benefits of energy savings, the Coalition has released an on line and print Guidebook for Strong Implementation of the Energy Efficiency Directive.

The Guidebook organises the legislation into major themes with legal checks, main deadlines and good practices, as well

as a list of top recommendations for a complete and successful implementation of the Directive.

The Coalition for Energy Savings brings together business, professional, local authorities, trade unions and civil society associations. The Coalition’s purpose is to make the case for a European energy policy that places a much greater, more meaningful emphasis on energy efficiency and savings. Coalition members represent more than 400 associations, 150 companies, 15 million supporters, more than 2 million employees, 1,000 cities and towns in 30 countries in Europe.

Energy Savings Gapometer

The Gapometer illustrates the contribution of indicative national energy efficiency targets (expressed in primary energy consumption in 2020) to closing the gap to

the EU target, compared to latest available EU projections for 2020, including policies and measures in place by the end of 2009 (PRIMES published 2010). n National targets, which are above those projections for primary energy consumption, are increasing the gap and are coloured red. n National targets coloured yellow require only energy savings at levels close to what is required by the binding annual 1.5% energy end - use saving obligation (Article 7) and other measures in the Energy Efficiency Directive. n National targets coloured green require savings beyond what is required by the binding annual 1.5% energy end - use saving obligation (Article 7) and other measures in the Energy Efficiency Directive.

Ranking of national targets

This ranking shows the energy savings required to reach the national targets in percentage compared to the latest EU projections for 2020 (PRIMES published 2010). Positive figures mean that additional energy savings and thus energy efficiency improvement measures are required.

Negative figures mean that less savings than already projected are required.

The Coalition for Energy Savings Rue de Toulouse 49, B-1040 Brussels, Belgium Tel +32.2.235.20.13 www.energycoalition.eu Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 27

compressed air

Getting the focus right Greg Bordiak is the technical officer at the British Compressed Air Society (BCAS). Here he discusses one of the compressed air industry’s key concerns, the ever- increasing importance of energy reduction

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lmost three quarters of industries use compressed air for some aspect of their operations. Many of these industries operate round-the-clock, so it’s no surprise that energy reduction continues to be the key driver behind the majority of compressed air system improvements.

Whether it’s investing in the latest, highefficiency compressor and downstream technology, or simply carrying out an air audit on an existing network, energy concerns have become the norm.

There are also certain legislative requirements that mean many manufacturers have an obligation to improve their carbon footprint, by investing in new, energy-efficient technologies.

For example, with the ever-increasing demands on natural resources, the EU has embarked on a programme of legislative measures to introduce energy saving goals.

In the consumer area, everyone is aware of the energy ratings for white goods. In the industrial and commercial sectors, one of the measures was the Energy Using Products Directive (EUP), which introduced a framework for the setting of eco-design requirements for energy-using products.

The most recent and notable legislative provision resulting from the EUP was the regulation covering energy efficiency ratings of electric motors.

subject to further investigation, with the prospect of future legislation.

Included in 2011 were compressors, under LOT 31, which meant that a consultant would be appointed to identify those areas of compressor technology that would benefit from energy efficiency measures.

Since then, the compressed air industry has been working to convince the European Commission that the prime energy saving target in compressed air applications should be the entire system, and not any one piece of equipment.

Energy related products

Consider the entire system

The European Commission extended the scope of the EUP directive to include energy related products. The meaning of this is defined in the new directive, which states that an “energy-related product’ is any product that has an impact on energy consumption during use. For example, double-glazing could be considered an energy-related product as, although not an energy user itself, it has an effect on energy used in buildings for heating.

During the life of the EUP, various energy-using products were highlighted for legislative measures, although compressors and compressed air equipment were not included. With the publication of the Energy Related Products Directive (ERP) in 2009, the EU published a list of technology areas that may be 28 | Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14

The EU has appointed a Consultant, VHK from the Netherlands, to produce a report and recommendations on what and how the energy efficiency requirement is to be identified for compressors.

VHK has been liaising with the compressor industry representative PNEUROP, in which BCAS is actively involved. Part of the report that VHK is required to produce is a study to establish the size and energy usage of the market.

An estimate for the energy usage of the total compressor market in the EU produced a result in the region of 240TWh for all compressor technologies.

The PNEUROP working group is developing an argument to restrict the scope of the eventual legal provision so that the appropriate resources can be

focussed on identifying the most beneficial sector of the compressor market that can show real energy efficiency savings.

The identity of a basic compressor configuration will have to be representative of the market sector. This then takes the discussion back to what the customer wants in the form of the packaged compressor configuration. The question needs to be asked whether a basic compressor configuration and the wants of the customer can be reconciled.

PNEUROP is struggling to find a solution to this configuration, which in itself is reducing the scope of what will eventually become the legal provision.

A basic configuration for oil flooded rotary compressors is evolving and one for reciprocating compressors is being identified.

The PNEUROP working group meets almost once a month to provide assistance to VHK so that an industry acceptable proposal for the coming legislation can be put forward for EU agreement.

Its important to remember that although a compressor is deemed efficient, it could still be installed into a system that may not be configured to take advantage of this improved performance. This overall system does not currently have an energy efficient statement of its own.

However, an energy efficient statement for the overall system can soon be obtained using standardised methods and procedures within the ISO 11011 “Compressed air — Energy efficiency: Assessment”.

The new standard considers the entire air system, from the energy inputs to the task performed and classifies compressed air in to three subsystems: • Supply, which includes the conversion the of primary energy resource to compressed air energy.

• Transmission, which includes the movement of compressed air energy from where it is generated to where it is used.

• Demand, which includes the total of all compressed air consumers, including productive end-use applications and various forms of compressed air waste.

compressed air

Assessing system efficiency

In compressed air systems with very large runs of pipe work and little control over system pressure, it can be difficult to manage air usage. The ISO 11011 assesses compressed air use, critical production functions and poor system performance.

This assessment should help to identify and quantify energy waste, the balance between compressed air supply and demand, energy use and total compressed air demand.

One of the key features of ISO 11011 will be the establishment of a ‘baseline’ performance of a compressed air system.

The purpose of base lining is to establish the current performance levels and costs of a compressed air system, and to correlate the results with the plant’s present production levels.

As improvements are made to the compressed air system, it will be possible to estimate improvements by comparing

the new measurements with the original baseline.

The ISO working group led by BCAS met in November 2012 to discuss the comments during the last voting phase where it received 100% support enabling publication of ISO 11011 during the first half of 2013.

10% more efficient

The question that remains is what level of energy saving can be achieved by compressor technologies to satisfy the

upcoming legal provision from the EU, and how much energy can the customer expect to save from their system?

A 10% improvement in energy efficiency for a compressor package many not be possible, but savings of over 10% are certainly possible when it comes to the complete compressed air system.

Has the EU focussed on the right area with machine efficiency, or should the efficiency of the complete air system be the subject of the coming regulation?

British Compressed Air Society Tel: 020 7935 2464 www.bcas.org.uk info@bcas.org.uk BCAS is the UK trade body which acts as a “onestopshop” for compressed air and vacuum. It has a range of fact sheets, publications, training courses and seminars. BCAS members be they manufacturers, suppliers or users of compressed air equipment, all benefit from specialist tailored advice on technical and legislative matters.

Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 29

heating

Heating controls: energy savings larger than thought BEAMA Association Director Colin Timmins explains how research has shown that potential energy savings from heating controls are much larger than previously thought.

N

ew research carried out on behalf of TACMA, the controls association within BEAMA, shows that the installation of effective temperature controls on home heating systems has a far more significant effect on minimising energy use than has previously been predicted.

Tests in a typical UK house built within an environmental chamber show that energy consumption by the heating systems can be reduced by up to 40% through the installation of a room thermostat and TRVs (thermostatic radiator valves), with installation costs recovered in around a year.

TACMA commissioned the University

of Salford to carry out some independent tests on the performance of heating controls in their Energy House facility. This facility consists of a full-size house built within an environmental chamber, and is designed to monitor energy consumption before and after retrofit measures are installed so that the true effectiveness of new and existing technologies to reduce energy can be assessed. The house is representative of over 5 million of the current UK housing stock and is fully furnished and fitted as a typical working home with a conventional heating system with an A-rated condensing boiler and radiators.

The advantage of the Energy House

is that it allows us to test the ability of controls to reduce energy use when introduced onto a real heating system installed in a real house without the intervention of user behaviour. Obviously, the way that occupants operate the system and choices they make about comfort conditions will affect energy use, but we also need a baseline assessment of how much energy the addition of controls can potentially save. The main aim was to answer the fundamental question of whether a heating system with controls will use less energy than a system without controls, and how big the difference in energy use can be.

Three tests were carried out with the

The Energy House, University of Salford, where the effectiveness of heating controls tests took place 30 | Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14

heating

environmental chamber maintaining an average winter external temperature of 5oC, and with the heating system timed to come on and off in accordance with the SAP weekday heating pattern of two hours in the morning and seven hours in the afternoon/evening, both with a 30 minute warm-up time. The tests were as below: Test 1 – The heating system was operated with no temperature control other that the internal boiler thermostat.

Test 2 – The heating system was operated with temperature control by a room thermostat (with interlock) located in the living room.

Test 3 – The heating system was operated with temperature control by a room thermostat (with interlock) in the living room and TRVs on all radiators other than the one in the living room. The tests were conducted using TRVs with the ‘keymark’ which independently guarantees reliability and performance.

The table opposite shows the top-line results from the tests.

The scale of savings shown in these tests is significantly better than what is generally assumed, particularly for TRVs. The same house had an assessment carried out using the SAP methodology, which is the standard calculation tool used by Government in many of its policy tools such as the Green Deal. Under this tool the energy savings from the addition of TRVs is estimated at 2%, rather than the approximate 30% savings shown under the actual tests.

The tests also showed how the application of TRVs to provide

Test results Tests carried out

24 hr heating cost

Reduced cost from controls

1 - No temperature control

£5.31

0%

2 – Control by room thermostat only

£4.68

12.0%

3 – Control by room thermostat + TRVs £3.15

40.7%

independent temperature control in every room can significantly improve comfort for householders by providing satisfactory heat distribution around a dwelling. The tests show this is not achieved without TRVs, even if the system is balanced.

Conclusions

It is clear from this latest evidence that all homes with a conventional hydronic heating system should have a room thermostat and a full set of TRVs. Benefits

for householders will be systems that work as intended, delivering both comfort and efficiency. Installers can benefit will benefit by making sure that both room thermostats and TRVs are brought up to standard when a boiler is replaced, and also by promoting heating controls as a valuable home improvement when, for example, servicing an existing boiler.

TACMA will be developing supporting literature to help installers sell the benefits of controls to their customers.

BEAMA is the independent expert knowledge base and forum for the electrotechnical industry for the UK and across Europe.

Representing over 300 manufacturing companies in the electrotechnical sector, the organisation has significant influence over UK and international political, standardisation and commercial policy.

For more BEAMA information visit www.beama.org.uk More research findings information – contact: colin.timmins@beama.org.uk; research report link: http://www.beama.org.uk/en/news/index.cfm/tacma-research Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 31

drives & motors

Variety is the spice of industry They say that variety is the spice of life, but when it comes to energy saving technologies variety may just be the spice of industry as well. Steve Brambley, deputy director at GAMBICA talks about the range of ways in which energy management, procurement and control professionals can reduce electricity consumption on their sites.

T

he first thing to consider when looking for a motor driven system (for example a ventilation system, air conditioning, or pumping application) is low energy consumption.

Having a holistic view of your system and the load it is supposed to drive enables accurate specification. Finding the

32 | Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14

correct size of motor and then looking for the most energy efficient model in its category is essential pre-purchasing research.

Variable speed drives

Installing a variable speed drive on industrial motors remains one of the

best and most straightforward ways of reducing energy usage, particularly when driving pumps and fans. These are used everywhere from pools, spas and leisure centres to offices and commercial buildings to heavy industry.

With 21% of all UK electricity consumption attributed to running

drives & motors industrial motors, manufacturers need to act fast and make wiser decisions.

But what action should you take if you have inherited an AC system running an electricity-hungry motor?

In such situations, one of the best ways to make an application more energy efficient is by controlling the motor speed.

Where applicable, installing a variable speed drive (VSD) often results in efficiency improvements of 30% or more.

VSDs can cut the energy bill on your application or system by more than their own capital cost in a relatively short period. And, as electricity prices continue to rise, the return on investment (ROI) on a VSD application increases in proportion

to the bill. Furthermore, because the cost of a VSD has actually remained stable over the last decade, payback can be achieved quicker than ever - often in less than a year.

Fixed speed control

Another option, for use where variable speed control is not applicable, is fixed speed control, such as a softstart or contactor. Here the energy saving comes from switching the motor off when it is not required, using automation to ensure maximum system efficiency.

Examples of applications where fixed speed controls are required include conveyors, hoists, escalators and travelators.

If you rely on a person to switch your application off when not in use chances are they won’t do so at the right time. So by sensing when the escalator is not in use and stopping it, fixed controls can save you money in energy bills. Relying on manual control usually results in the motor being left on too often, where using sensors and logic controllers for example can switch the motor off at every available opportunity.

Softstarts

A softstart is used mainly with AC electric motors to temporarily reduce the load and torque in the powertrain and electrical current surge of the motor during startup.

This reduces the mechanical stress on the motor and shaft, as well as the electrodynamic stresses on the attached power cables and electrical distribution network, thereby extending the lifespan of the system.

Softstarts are also used for escalators, as otherwise when turned on; the system will jerk and create a safety hazard for people travelling on it.

Electrical soft starters can use solid state devices to control the current flow and therefore the voltage applied to the motor.

They can be set up to the requirements of the individual application.

In pump applications, a softstart can avoid pressure surges. Conveyor belt systems can be smoothly started, avoiding Continued on page 34

Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 33

drives & motors

Continued from page 33 jerk and stress on drive components. For instance in food processing applications, particularly on conveyors which are continually loaded with products, a gentle start is essential.

Fans or other systems with belt drives can be started slowly to avoid belt slippage. In all systems, a softstart limits the inrush current and improves stability of the power supply and reduces transient voltage drops that may affect other loads.

Contactors and circuit breakers

In its simplest form, a contactor is an electrically controlled switch for a power circuit, similar to a relay but with a higher current rating.

Contactors come in many forms with varying capacities and features. Unlike a circuit breaker, a contactor is not intended to interrupt a short circuit current.

Contactors are used to control electric motors, lighting, heating, capacitor banks, thermal evaporators, and other electrical loads.

34 | Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14

Furthermore, an ‘economizer’ circuit can also be installed to reduce the power required to keep a contactor closed; an auxiliary contact reduces coil current after the contactor closes.

A somewhat greater amount of power is initially required to close a contactor than that required to keep it closed. Such a circuit can save a substantial amount of power and allow the energised coil to run cooler. Economizer circuits are nearly always applied on direct-current contactor coils and on large alternating current contactor coils.

Most motor control contactors that operate at low voltage up to 600V are air break contactors; air at atmospheric pressure surrounds the contacts and extinguishes the arc when interrupting the circuit.

Modern medium-voltage motor controllers use vacuum contactors.

High voltage contactors above 1kV may use vacuum or an inert gas around the contacts.

Although some sceptics talk about variety leading to decision fatigue, at GAMBICA we believe that facilities managers need to be relentless in exploring all the energy saving options available to them. Whether it’s a fixed or variable speed application, correctly controlled from the very beginning or as a retrofit project, we must continuously try and reduce energy use in industry, at all costs.

Association for Instrumentation, Control, Automation & Laboratory Technology (GAMBICA) Broadwall House, 21 Broadwall, London SE1 9PL Tel: 020 7642 8080 Fax: 020 7642 8096 e-mail: sbrambley@gambica.org.uk www: www.gambica.org.uk

compressed air systems

Mattei advises on how to make compressed air systems more efficient Leading rotary vane manufacturer Mattei is committed to raising awareness about the factors that affect the energy efficiency of a compressed air system

O

ne of the company’s key aims is to highlight that increasing efficiency does not always involve investment in a new compressor. In some circumstances making improvements to the system itself can result in significant savings.

As general manager Andy Jones explains: “We strongly advise combining a data logging exercise, or preferably a more detailed energy audit in accordance with ISO11011 – a new auditing standard being introduced in September this year – with a leak detection survey. This will indicate whether the compressor installed is appropriate or needs to be upgraded, and will highlight whether there are any leaks in the system.

“Leak detection in itself could be enough to actually make an inefficient installation efficient – without replacing the compressor.

In many companies in excess of 30 per cent of air generated is wasted through leaks in the system. As a guide, for a company using 50m3 of compressed air per minute we estimate the annual savings from fixing leaks would potentially be in the region of £63,000.”

Leaks are simple to identify and rectify, and it’s cost-effective; the average cost of a Mattei leak detection survey is less than 10 per cent of the overall leakage costs. Typically an 800 per cent return on investment is delivered, and customers will generally see a payback within three to six months.

Andy continues: “A high-quality assessment should also show whether the compressor is sited in the most appropriate position – not just in relation to where the air is used but also in terms of the air quality and air flow into the compressor. It should also identify whether the pipe runs are suitably designed, laid out and sized.

Although smaller diameter pipe may save on capital cost, greater pressure drops in the system lead to a higher operating cost.”

If a new compressor is being purchased, it’s important to avoid the temptation to replace like-for-like – the existing compressor might have been incorrectly specified in the first place, or production processes might have changed – again a data logging exercise or energy audit will identify this. Recently Mattei found that one company running a 75kW compressor could actually fulfil its compressed air requirements with a 45kW machine, with estimated savings being in the region of £10,000 a year.

It’s also vital to consider what level of air quality is required; as Andy Jones explains: “When purchasing new compressed air

equipment, an increasing number of companies are including the terms ‘oil-free’ and ‘class 0 (zero)’ on their tender documents. Our concern is that they’re being used without real understanding about what they actually mean or what benefits they deliver.

“It’s important for specifiers to determine whether class 1 or class 0 air is truly required – and whether it is needed for the entire system or just part of it – because the more stringent the purity, the more costly it is to achieve it, especially if the oil-free compressor route is taken. Oil-free compressors are more expensive than oil-lubricated equivalents, in terms of the capital outlay and maintenance, as well as the amount of energy they use.”

Consideration should be given to choosing the most efficient compressor, rather than the cheapest one available. Andy says: “Some businesses have a misconception that compressed air is ‘free’ once they have invested in the equipment, but the main cost will always be the energy required to produce the compressed air, with the initial purchase price actually making up a very small part of the total lifetime costs of the equipment.

“The specific energy efficiency of the product must be assessed, as the electrical running costs can typically account for 75 per cent of the cost of ownership over five years. For instance a standard Mattei 30kW compressor will deliver 5.62m3/min (199cfm) and our highly efficient Maxima30 (also 30kW) will deliver 6.45m3/min (228cfm), while some other 30kW compressors only deliver values like 4.7m3/ min (166cfm) or 3.9m3/min (138cfm). It must be remembered that a slightly higher initial capital outlay could pay for itself in just a matter of months by reducing energy consumption.”

As well as offering a range of energy efficient compressors, Mattei aims to raise awareness about related, cost-effective services that could improve efficiency without the need to finance a new compressor.

Mattei Compressors Ltd Admington Lane, Admington, Shipston-onStour, Warwickshire CV36 4JJ Tel: 01789 450577 www.mattei.co.uk Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 35

hvac

Magnatech offers industrial-sized savings Magnatech Ltd is saving major energy users across a range of industries millions year-on-year with its highperformance fuel conditioning systems - designed not only to significantly cut costs and carbon emissions, but to maximise heating system efficiency

F

or more than ten years, Magnatech has been working with the most powerful magnetic technology available today to provide bespoke fuel conditioning solutions for commercial and industrial buildings. Its units provide major energy users with substantial financial, energy and carbon savings with no pipes to cut or costly production downtime required.

Independently verified by the Tritech ETV (Environmental Technology Verification) Project, Magnatech’s advanced magnetic technology is guaranteed to reduce fuel consumption on existing systems by at least 6%, with typical results indicating savings of around 10%. The systems use powerful neodymium magnets to effectively enhance the combustion process, and are simply fitted to the outside of fuel feed lines in a particular pattern to create a rise in flame temperature. This allows the system to reach the desired temperature sooner and as a result, reduces overall fuel consumption.

Comments Managing Director Ian Gander: “With typical payback periods of less than 12 months, no running or maintenance costs and a lifetime of savings, fuel conditioning is quickly becoming the popular, long-term solution amongst major energy users looking for immediate and considerable savings. What’s more, it is quick and completely non-obtrusive to fit.”

Magnatech units are successfully in use across the UK and globally, with the company counting international pharmaceutical companies, large-scale food processing firms and even leading supermarket chains amongst its customer base. Recent installations include fitting units at all of the UK administration centres for a major gas distribution company.

36 | Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14

Magnatech provides free expert site inspections, delivering bespoke insight into the most efficient type and sequence of magnets to suit individual needs. It also offers trials for those looking to gauge actual results, and a 100% money-back guarantee for anyone who is not completely satisfied with the outcome.

The company will be exhibiting at The Energy Event at Birmingham’s NEC Arena from 10th-11th September 2013. Visitors to the Magnatech stand (C20) will be able to see first-hand how fuel conditioning can work to cut their buildings’ energy use, bills and emissions.

See us at the Energy Event on stand C20 For more information, please visit: www.magnatech.org.uk or call 01327 831515.

hvac

MoD reduces energy consumption with boiler load optimisation The Sabien M2G intelligent boiler load optimiser is making an important contribution to reducing the energy consumption and carbon emissions of the MoD estate, including HMS Sultan and the South East Regional Prime Contract

R

ecent projects include the supply of 111 M2G intelligent boiler load optimisers to HMS Sultan, the home of the Defence School of Marine Engineering (DSMarE) and the Royal Naval Air Engineering and Survival School (RNAESS). CUSUM (cumulative sum) analysis of energy consumption data indicates a 12% energy saving, with a return on investment within 1.4 years.

Installation of the M2G units was part of a wider ranging programme of energy conservation measures carried out at HMS Sultan by facilities management company Babcock International Group, which has delivered cost savings of over £2m.

Glenn Chatwood, Environment and Energy Manager, explained: “We had been aware of the potential savings from controlling boiler dry-cycling for some time. Consequently, when funds became available we worked with Sabien on assessing our boiler plant and building a business case.

“Initially we evaluated the performance of M2G on the three boilers in the JRAC building, as these had high gas consumption.

Once these results had proved the savings we rolled the solution out to the remaining 108 boilers on the HMS Sultan estate,” he continued.

M2G units were installed in the JRAC building in January 2012 and gas consumption data for the four months post-installation was compared with data for 12 months pre-installation. These results were corrected using degree data, to take account of weather variation, and subsequent CUSUM analysis showed a 12% reduction in energy consumption. Across the estate this will equate to annual cost savings of £126,000 with an annual reduction in CO2 emissions of 1million kilograms.

“Once the details of the project had been finalised we were able to leave the day-to-day management of the project to Sabien, so there was very little pressure on our own resources. They provided a very high level of project management and we are very pleased with the results,” Glenn Chatwood added A number of the buildings across the HMS Sultan estate have existing BMS controls in place. “The M2G’s ability to work in harmony with our existing BMS and any future BMS upgrades and deployments was a prerequisite for us and this has been proven since the installation of M2G,” Glenn Chatwood observed.

M2G integrates and complements any BMS system, including controls such as weather compensation, boiler sequencing and optimum start control. By fine tuning each boiler to address boiler

dry-cycling M2G delivers additional cost savings and carbon reductions over and above the existing building and boiler controls.

Further installations across the MoD

Sabien has also received totalling over £1.2m for the installation of M2G across the MOD South East Regional Prime Contract. The contract has been awarded by PriDE, a joint venture between Interserve Defence Ltd and SSE Contracting, and further orders are expected over the next year.

As Prime Contractor, PriDE is responsible for estate management and construction services at almost 100 MoD sites throughout the south-east region, encompassing nearly 6,000 buildings and facilities.

Alan O’Brien, Chief Executive of Sabien commented: “This significant order demonstrates the key role M2G plays in reducing organisations’ gas consumption and CO2 emissions and how it can be deployed across large estates. We look forward to working with PriDE to deliver this project.”

For further information www.sabien-tech.co.uk/m2g

Sabien Technology Ltd 34 Clarendon Road, Watford, Herts WD17 1JJ Tel: 0800 082 89 89 Fax: 01923 252318 Email: reduceC02@sabien-tech.co.uk Web: www.sabien-tech.co.uk Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 37

metering

Serving the gas industry worldwide

B

ryan Donkin RMG Gas Controls have been at the forefront of the Gas Industry for over 150 years. They now number 8 manufacturing sites in the UK, Germany and Canada plus over 100 associate companies worldwide employing around 1200 people.

More recently the company became a member of the global process and controls organisation Honeywell providing a truly astonishing combined array of expertise, presence and excellence worldwide.

Growing into all areas of industrial gas usage a natural progression was with electronic and mechanical metering systems 30 years ago, including process gas chromatology, odourization systems and fully monitored energy and data management crucial in today’s energy conscious environment.

Computer supported systems for data loggers, meter readings, measuring values and data analysis are all part of our remit to provide both local and transmittable energy information.

We manufacture to the highest standards of quality, accuracy and reliability across the range which is confirmed with ISO, PTB, DVGW and many more accreditations and a continuous policy of on going research and development.

Our metering ranges include all fully certified test documentation and covers: • • • • • • • • •

Vortex Flow meters Turbine Flow meters (both primary & secondary) Rotary Displacement Meters Ultrasonic Meters Temperature & Pressure Correctors Process Gas Chromatographs Gas Odourisation Systems Gas Quality Measurement Flow Computers, Analysers & Data Loggers

So if your needs are for an individual item of machinery or through to full gas plant energy system please contact us on 01246 501501, bdrmg.sales@honeywell.com www.rmg.com

Bryan Donkin RMG Gas Controls Ltd. Enterprise Drive, Holmewood, Chesterfield S42 5UZ Tel: 01246 501501 Fax: 01246 501500 e-mail: bdrmg.sales@honeywell.com web:www.rmg.com 38 | Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14

monitoring & targeting

Your energy solution Elcomponent has the resource and experience to provide a solution to all your energy monitoring requirements utilising both portable and fixed systems. They have supplied more portable energy analysers to UK customers since 1986 than any other single manufacturer, and since 1998 have supplied more than 200 automatic sub-metering systems to applications including MOD sites, government buildings, major supermarkets and a host of manufacturing plants.

A

ll sub-metering systems satisfy the ‘requirement to monitor’ aspects of the Carbon Reduction Commitment and are eligible for Enhanced Capital Allowance tax breaks.

They are passionate about helping their customers reduce their carbon footprint and cut their energy costs, and have a strong track record of doing so. Their products and services are based on the belief that carbon efficiency and cost reduction are not incompatible both are realised by simply consuming less energy. By working closely with each customer, that goal is turned into reality.

Their market leading range of portable Energy Data Loggers offers a choice of very capable instruments to suit all applications and budgets. With the emphasis on safe, non-invasive operation all the loggers are suitable for use by non-technical staff, and are shipped complete with everything you need to start work immediately, including the correct integrated software. The units are fully programmable for survey length and storage value, and feature large non-volatile memory for flexibility and data security.

The 3 phase units are supplied with flexible CTs as standard for safety and ease-of-use, and as with all their instruments, full technical support is only a phone call away.

Elcomponent’s MD, Bill Gysin, believes that the SPC range represents outstanding value, not just because of the units’ low prices, but because of their effect on carbon emissions. “Portable data loggers are the gift that keeps on giving, from a carbon perspective” he says. “You only have to buy the unit once, but virtually every time you use it, it will pinpoint some energy waste or inefficiency - a poorly controlled baseload or whatever – which means over time, a single logger can have a huge effect on an organisation’s carbon footprint.”

On the sub-metering side Elcomponent’s “MeterWeb” (www. meterweb.com) is the first aM&T package designed from the start to be accessible to all. Energy Managers have known for a long time that there is only so much you can do with a ‘top down’ approach. At some point, further improvements cannot be made without everyone in the business getting ‘onside’; becoming energy and carbon aware and pulling together to achieve better results. These results must be easy to access, and easy to understand. “MeterWeb” approaches this by providing multiple user-access levels, with the lowest level being universal. It’s a carbon footprint presentation that is designed to run in reception areas, or as a page on the company website – effectively a dynamic statement of carbon performance and aspirations. Other levels require a specific log-on, but can be tailored for departmental or individual relevance – the user only sees what is relevant to them. Full access is reserved for power users who are able to take advantage of the full spectrum of features, and if necessary, tailor the look and feel of the product for others.

Elcomponent Ltd Unit 5 Southmill Trading Centre, Southmill Road, Bishop’s Stortford, Herts CM 23 3DY Tel: 01279 503173 Fax: 01279 654441 E-Mail: Debbie@elcomponent.co.uk Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 39

monitoring & targeting

Old building, new technology, a perfect fit

A

ny company or organisation wanting to improve their Energy Efficiency, generally need to look at secondary or submetering AMR (Automatic Meter Reading) systems, to give an idea of energy usage downstream of the main incoming supplies.

Unfortunately, all too often the cost of retrofit installations in existing buildings brings the viability of the project into question.

Enercom Ltd has the solution; Enercom are able to “hijack” the sites existing LV Powerline network to communicate energy data within the AMR System around the site, the data is concentrated at nominated system gateway’s, where it is communicated out-with the system via the preferred means whether that is IP Addressable LAN, GSM, GPRS or internal PSTN for example.

Enercom’s unique PLC - AMR system negates a whole wealth of installation issues associated with networking, for example: • No drilling holes in walls • No Lifting carpets • No climbing through narrow and cramped ceiling voids • No digging trenches In fact Enercom’s PLC AMR system is clean, convenient and very, very cost effective to install and allows businesses to continue un-interrupted throughout the installation.

The successful eight and three channel Multilog AMR Systems use the PLT-22 Powerline Technology and are now widely used across the UK and Europe eliminating high costs associated with retro-fit AMR installations in public sector, commercial and industrial sectors.

Enercom’s G4T Technology now has the potential to turn

existing standard pulsed output meters into smart meters without the associated costs. G4T Technology allows data to be viewed on a web browser in “real-time”. The G4T can send data out to the host server at one minutely intervals, allowing the user to view their energy profiles as energy is being consumed across their site. Used in conjunction with Enercom’s eight and three channel Multilog devices the G4T can return the data for up to four hundred meter points, having the ability to store up to seven and a half years of half-hourly data within the device itself. “Now the client can truly have the confidence that no energy data will ever be lost” Analysis of the graphical data produced can be achieved via Enercom MultiWeb aM&T Web Browser Software. This allows comparison of all measured utilities whether it is gas, water, heat or electricity and individual plant and equipment over time, enabling identification of baseline and erroneous energy consumption.

Such management information provides for the specific implementation of behavioural change of the buildings occupants in order to negate unnecessary consumption.

The versatility of the Enercom solution can be demonstrated by diverse range of applications which include; universities, hospitals, theme parks, museums, retail and a wealth of commercial and industrial applications. Whatever or wherever the AMR application, Enercom has the solution.

Enercom Ltd 134 High Street, Barwell, Leicestershire LE9 8DR Phone: 01455 840 100 Fax: 01455 840 200 Email: enercom@enercom.co.uk Web: www.enercom.co.uk 40 | Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14

Sustainability Reporting

Track, manage and forecast key sustainability metrics such as carbon, water, waste and Corporate Social Responsibility Sustainability is good for business, and organisations around the world are implementing sustainability strategies as a necessity rather than a notional desire. But for these strategies to be effective you need to be able manage, know, track, monitor, control, and customise all the necessary information across your organisation.

S

chneider Electric has produced a new cutting-edge solution to meet the specific and practical requirements of any business serious about sustainability - Resource Advisor.

Schneider Electric, with a proven record of leading organisations around the globe to thriving sustainability programmes across all dimensions, delivers end-to-end sustainability solutions no other company can match.

Resource Advisor (RA) combines quality assurance and data capture capabilities into one energy and carbon management solution.

RA can be customised to meet your needs and configured to your unique preferences, with payment only for the functionality needed.

Further configuration by multiple users with easyto-add widgets throughout the site is available.

Features include: • customisable homepage giving a personalised dashboard • site dashboards giving individual sites their own dashboards • localised preferences including currency, units of measure, and language • sub-sites give data at more granular level • flexibility to manually enter customised data and data validation in real time.

You can monitor the markets. Our energy analysts model key futures markets and dozens of energy index points across the globe.

Features include: • Commodities Forecasting • Market Pricing • Data-Driven Analysis You and your stakeholders need accurate, timely spend and usage information. Resource Advisor collects, analyses and reports on your cost and consumption at the macro or micro level. Features include: • Cost & Usage Reporting • Summary Data – includes specific site information giving info for any site or meter • Interactive Map – displays the latest activity for each site • Custom Reporting - build virtually any report imaginable.

Global pressure to curb emissions and become more efficient by reducing water consumption and waste, means companies require accurate and timely environmental reporting. RA allows you to establish and track your carbon, water and waste footprints and communicate the reduction results to key stakeholders.

RA aids this with a Sustainability Homepage; carbon emissions reporting segmented by source, scope and pollutant; carbon inventories allowing control of your carbon footprint. Access to a library of necessary emission factors allows compliance with, and reporting to, governing bodies around the globe; and data collection summaries allow quick data audits.

With RA you keep track of savings and cost avoidance opportunities Schneider Electric has harvested on your behalf. Features include: • hedge reporting • drag-and-drop functionality configures charts by selecting the facilities and metrics you want to track and benchmark against each other • optimise your environmental hedge positions on carbon, renewable energy and emissions credits • savings reports give analysis of the financial impact of initiatives and recommendations made by Schneider Electric.

RA’s built-in project warehouse and scenario planning components are enhanced by goal setting and forecasting functionality, so you see potential impacts prior to inception.

RA delivers easy access to invoices, contracts and documented recommendations. You can: • create your own projects to track metrics and enter key milestones • access energy invoices quickly • create goals at any level in the enterprise and monitor progress toward completion.

Whether standard features or a more customised user-experience is needed, Resource Advisor is a fast, flexible business tool.

To request a demo, visit: www.SEcontact.com/ee

Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14 | 41

voltage management

Voltage management for the future

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any Engineers, Energy Experts and FM Professionals are disregarding the benefits that the latest Voltage Optimisation systems offer having been miss-sold on the expected energy savings in the past or because they have doubts that the old Voltage Optimisation technology would be able to offer any real benefits.

The latest technological developments have put an end to these doubts. e-fficient Energy’s market leading eVO+R™ Voltage Optimisation plus Regulation systems deliver provable savings and are the only UK company to provide true Voltage Management with their unique tried and tested Buck & Boost technology.

If you have considered, and rejected Voltage Optimisation in the past, now is the time to look at it again. e-fficient Energy’s eVO+R™ systems are not only delivering genuine guaranteed savings but the added benefits of a regulated and managed voltage is resolving Plant, Machinery and Electrical problems caused by Brown-outs and voltage spikes experienced across the UK. And the increasingly volatility of the UK Mains supply is remedied by these eVO+R™ systems – smoothing the incoming voltages to the optimum level for the particular characteristics of the site.

More and more companies, especially those with critical loads are investing in this technology to give them the peace of mind they need and eradicate their fears over existing and future voltage issues.

Buck & Boost – why it is the better solution

Unlike other Voltage Optimisation systems which typically employ step down transformers which just reduce the incoming voltage by a set amount - for example 4% or 6% - the eVO+R™ Voltage Optimisation plus Regulation system intelligently optimises and regulates the incoming mains voltage and maintains it at the desired set point voltage. This is typically 220V to match the optimum voltage of the majority of electrical equipment but can be varied on-load at 1V increments to suit the exact needs of your building. This facility is unique to the eVO+R™.

eVO+R™ systems typically generate up to 30% greater savings in electricity usage than step down transformer systems – maximising your opportunity to reduce your electricity bills, carbon footprint, save more money and achieve the highest Return on your Investment.

The UK suffers from over voltage supply for the majority of the time and on occasion from under voltage. True Voltage Regulation is only achieved when the mains voltage is controlled not just when there is “over voltage” but also in “under voltage” scenarios.

42 | Energy Efficient Solutions | 2013/14

This is known as Buck & Boost Voltage regulation - True Voltage Management.

Uniquely the eVO+R™ Voltage Optimisation plus Regulation system has an intelligent Buck & Boost facility which boosts the voltage up to 220V if the incoming mains voltage drops below 220V – safeguarding your sensitive electrical equipment and maximising the savings possible.

Buck & Boost Voltage Regulation controls the voltage via a multiple tap transformer. No other system on the UK market can offer this valuable benefit. The simple reality is that the National Grid voltage continuously fluctuates and most sites will suffer from a 12V voltage swing. Fluctuations in the incoming supply voltages limit the ability of basic fixed ratio Voltage Optimisation. …and this Voltage volatility is set to increase as we reach the maximum power availability from the National Grid and as the Grid reacts to feed-in supplies from Wind power, photovoltaic and local generation.

The new Buck & Boost intelligent technology addresses these performance and reliability issues – guaranteeing a consistent output voltage and ensuring the user a continuity of supply. eVO+R™ is a future solution for your business.

To find out how eVO+R™ Voltage Management can help you protect your electrical infrastructure, and reduce your electricity usage and carbon footprint e-fficient Energy have recently launched a Free Site Survey scheme to encourage companies to see if it will work for them – to benefit the e-fficient Energy team on 01909 569 016 or see their website at www.e-fficientenergy.co.uk

e-fficient Energy Systems Ltd Craig Needham, Managing Director craigneedham@e-fficientenergy.co.uk 01909 569 016 www.e-fficientenergy.co.uk

Introducing a strategic sustainability plan that puts money back in your budget Up to

30%*savings

enterprise-wide

Corporate office savings

Data centre savings

Manufacturing plant savings

Let our in-house experts develop a tailored energy and sustainability plan that delivers tangible results for your business.

Accelerate business performance with a trusted partner.

See savings with our life cycle approach.

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Ranked 13th in the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World by Corporate Knights.

Named a leader in the Verdantix 2013 Green QuadrantÂŽ Energy Management Software (Global) report.

Learn how to improve your bottom line with energy and sustainability management!

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