energy – Enviro-Mentalist

Compressor Survey

As I mentioned in my last post, I am trying to reduce the energy usage at work by looking at the process equipment. The first piece(s) of equipment to fall under the spotlight was the compressor. Although maintenance did not want to change any of the settings they did arrange for someone from the Company who installed and services the compressors to come in and talk to me about them (although maintenance were conspicuously absent from the meeting).

The outcome of the meeting was that we had a set of dataloggers installed to look at the air usage over a week. From that we received a report detailing the loads during the week, the cost of generating the air, the annual cost of the air, and a number of recommendations for saving energy and money. It is hoped that when faced with the hard data, then maintenance and management would decide that changes needed to be made.

The first of the recommendations was to use only one compressor, not only would this save us electricity costs in excess of £1000 per year, but would also save £250 a year in servicing costs. This might not have been an economically viable option if it wasn’t for the fact that the pipework is already in place and all we have to do it turn a valve on. So, from this, another question arises – why do we have a separate compressor? The second plant was installed in 2001, 15 years after the first plant – why not use the same compressor? There is no one in the Company that can answer this question – so, as maintenance cannot think of a good reason not to do this, the valve will be opened and both plants monitored to check that there is no problem. The specification of the main compressor and the air requirements of the main plant are such that it can easily provide enough air for both plants. Money saved.

Second recommendation? You’ve guessed it, turn the pressure down – apparently a one bar reduction in pressure will save £185 per year. You might think that this is not much of a saving, but at 10p per kWh, it is equivalent to 1 tonne of CO2e per year, and it is all waste. I was a little disappointed that the survey could not tell me what my minimum operating pressure is, but as far as I can tell, as long as I keep above 6bar, then the second plant will be fine, and if I do reduce the pressure below the minimum for the main plant then it will just stop – which is not a disaster, we just turn the pressure back up and start it up again – as long as it is in a controlled way no damage will be done.

Recommendation three was something I am not sure about – there is the possibility of recovering the heat generated by the compressor and using it to heat the warehouse. However, the figures were based on the cost of electrical heating, gas is about 20% of the cost of electricity at the moment, and we do not want heat all year round. This suggestion is parked for now.

The final suggestion is to conduct a leak survey. Whilst we do check for leaks on a weekly basis, this is only done by listening for any leaks. It is possible that this is missed, and, if we are using the connecting pipework across the warehouse to power both plants it may be more worthwhile (expected cost £350). However, what is making me think that this could be worthwhile is that the survey showed the air usage graphically for the week. There were a couple of days where the main plant was shut down, and the air usage, whilst low, was not zero. Whilst there may be something that is kept under pressure when the plant is off, in which case maybe we can lock it off, it may be because of leaks in the system. I have estimated that if this was the case, then the cost of these leaks is £300 per annum.

So, I have the data, and although it cost £200 to get the survey done, we should be able to save up to £1500 a year for no outlay at all and we can have the changes made by the start of the CRCEE.

Crikey – The Carbon Reduction Energy Efficiency Scheme is nearly upon us.

So, if you work in a Company that consumes a large amount of power you have probably heard the initials CRC banded about, and know that the start date of the government’s latest attempt at reducing electricity consumption is almost here (1st April).

I work for just such a company, and am part of a steering committee tasked with ensuring that we are compliant and that we are taking steps to reduce our carbon footprint. However, this is not an easy thing to coordinate without having someone dedicated to ensure that it happens and we could be doing it better. I thought that I would write a few blog posts to record the things that work well and the areas in which we can improve. Whilst I am not sure anyone in the Corporate world would approve of such altruistic actions, as it could affect our league position, we could also improve by learning from our own mistakes.

So, firstly what is the CRCEE (as it is now called) scheme. Well, if you don’t know by now, it is perhaps a little late – but it is not always disseminated down to those who can really make a difference i.e. those who can turn the lights off and run the equipment that uses the electricity. I prepared a couple of posters for the start of the Switch Off campaign so that everyone might have an idea of what it is all about and why energy efficiency has suddenly become a buzzword. You can download them here if you like – CARBON REDUCTION COMMITMENT ENERGY EFFICIENCY SCHEME_EM. Even those who have heard about it seem to be confused, so I have included a brief outline of timelines.

The scheme is part of the Climate Change Act (CCA) and is aimed at large consumers of electricity that are not already subject to the CCA or part of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (therefore not electricity suppliers). It will work on the allocation of carbon credits – so polluters pay, but is supposed to be non-revenue generating and therefore not a tax, those saving the most money will get the most money back. However, as with all things these days, there is a lot of paperwork to be completed (think of the trees) and it therefore pays to be organised and set up some systems for data capture in advance – something I am working on at the moment.

The government has made a few changes, and so it is always a good idea to check the website out for the latest guidance. Unfotunately, it has been mired in confusion for the past year, the forms weren’t sent out on time, there was a worry about finding the cash up front for two years’ worth of credits, some companies wanted recognition for their early efforts to reduce energy usage (otherwise companies were holding off any changes whilst waiting for the appropriate year in order to improve their league table position), and others didn’t seem to have a clue – mainly government departments from what I can gather from the web discussions. So, in response, there is now no longer the requirement to buy two years’ worth of credits – only one is required and an early action league table. (Unfortunately the only way to do well on this is to gain the Carbon Trust Standard – which takes a year and involves at least two years of energy efficiency improvements, and to install automatic metering.) There is now more discussion on the internet about CRCEE and also, a lot more companies willing to take your money to ‘help’ you improve your energy usage.

The first actions in the scheme involve collation of all the necessary data, then, the fun begins and, hopefully, energy efficiency takes centre stage.

Going forward I will outline the things we have tried at work with regards to improving our energy efficiency – some are the so-called low hanging fruit, some will involve a little more thought, some will require capital investment and all will need a great deal of persuasion from those both above and below me within the Company.

Switch Off Campaign

A decision was made at Head Office that a switch off campaign sounded like a good idea, so we (the Carbon Reduction steering committee) were told to organise one in our respective division. So, that will be easy then. After some debate as to what constituted a switch off campaign with a leading light thinking that it would involve lots of surveys and the appointment of green champions to look for energy saving opportunities, I finally got them to see sense and realise that it was just what it said on the tin: a campaign to raise awareness and get everyone switching things off when they were not in use. Back to the real world and the rush of the every day job kicked in and I did not really think about the switch off campaign.

A month later a reminder came out with a start date of 4th January. OK, so now I have a deadline, but still no guidance. So, what to do? I could email the Site Managers and tell them to organize a switch off campaign – that would work! I turned once more to my trusty friend Google and found a couple of bits of information, mainly from local councils who had jointly run just such a scheme and used these as the starting point for my ideas.

The first thing I did was make an action plan for the actual campaign which was to be over a two week period:

Energy measurements to be taken at the same time each week for two weeks before, during and after the campaign.
Site Managers to brief all of the staff about the campaign
Site Managers to conduct a walk around the site during the campaign and provide positive and negative feedback to staff
Staff to be encouraged to submit energy saving ideas

etc, etc. The action plan was emailed out to the Site Managers a couple of weeks before the start to give them a little advance warning. I have found that each of the seven sites we have is very different in size and culture, and so, one size does not necessarily fit all, so the Site Managers were the best people to decide how to get local buy-in.

Next on my list was to create some advertising material, something that would remind staff about the campaign and why they should be turning things off. So, back to Mr Google for some more helpful hints and tips, followed by a trip to an online stock photo site for some appropriate pictures (yes, I know that one of my other passions is photography, but I was in a hurry and did not have the appropriate props). A couple of late nights later and I had a series of posters for display at the sites detailing environmental facts and energy saving tips. You can view them here:

SWITCH IT OFF

If you would like to use them please feel free to download – just let me know – it is always interesting to see where others are in their quest for energy efficiency as well as being good for the ego.

OK, so now I needed a bribe for the energy saving ideas bit. I settled on the promise of a tree planted in the name of the person with the best idea or a box of chocolates – should appeal to a lot of people I thought.

The campaign ran with mixed success, I will outline the reasons for this, along with the results, in my next post.

Lighting – do we have too much?

As mentioned in a recent article, we have had a couple of surveys conducted on the site, and both immediately singled out lighting as an area where we can cut our expenditure / consumption. This is an obvious place to look really as we are a large warehouse with a lot of lights.

As a brief intro, we essentially have 5 warehouse areas built over the last 20 years or so, of different heights, lit by fluorescent tubes for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; such is our working pattern. In addition, we have a few office areas that are, in the main, occupied only during office hours.

Whilst I will admit there is plenty we can do to cut our lighting bill, I think those auditing the site are under the impression that it is a bigger problem than the data actually suggests. The Carbon Trust report estimated that lighting accounted for 27% of our electricity consumption, and this is what I have discovered to date.

We have over 500 tubes of varying sizes on site.
If a room lit by fluorescent tubes is unoccupied for more than 9 minutes it is more energy efficient to turn the light off.
Getting people into the habit of turning off lights when leaving a room is difficult, but not impossible – I deem this a work in progress.
Two of our warehouses which were built in the last 10 years were fitted with daylight sensors – these warehouses have higher roofs and are generally lighter.
These sensors are in an unsuitable place, and in failing to control the lighting acceptably they have been covered up.
There are no light switches for these warehouses; the lights are on all day, every day.
Indoor lighting is responsible for approximately 11% of our consumption, with outdoor lighting on a sensor and adding about another 0.5-1%.

As stated at the beginning, there are measures we can take, but at only 11% of consumption, they will have a limited effect. I will update you with the results of these efforts at reducing our lighting bill in a later post.