Energy Efficiency
The energy required to run our business is the second highest operational cost.
Electricity consumption is the biggest element of this. We meet our required electricity demand from a combination of our renewable energy sources “green energy” and imported electricity from the national grid.
There are environmental and commercial drivers for reducing our energy consumption.
The Company has introduced a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to track our progress in meeting our energy efficiency targets for electricity consumption and is supporting improvement projects through capital investment.
Our strategy is to reduce our overall consumption through the implementation of energy efficiency projects and increase our renewable production.
The backbone of our efficiency projects is continual development and review of Site Energy Management Plans (SEMPs). To prioritise our actions we have focused on sites accounting for 85% of our electricity consumption.
These plans help us to understand site consumption, challenge current practice and identify opportunities for reduction. From each of the SEMPs a prioritised list of actions is produced. Examples of the actions identified include:
- Process optimisation on clean and waste water sites
- Replacement or refurbishment of inefficient pumps and other plant
- Minimising consumption in high cost periods
- Improve heating/lighting controls in all our premises to avoid unnecessary consumption
- Installation of additional /new metering
- Engaging our people to support and take responsibility for reducing our energy consumption
We are exploring innovative solutions to cut down the electricity consumption on our sites. For instance we are piloting a project to use ‘on-line’ ammonia monitoring to improve the dissolved oxygen set point control on selected activated sludge plants. This will mean that air blowers will only operate when necessary, thus minimising electricity consumption.
Our objective is to continually reduce our electricity consumption in line with the KPI targets set.