OVO Energy made improving its own energy efficiency a priority when it moved into new Bristol Headquarters in December 2014. Installing the Enistic energy management system identified cost savings of £120,000 and cut consumption by 30%!
On the face of it the building, which is 12 years-old and just undergone a 3-month refurbishment seemed to be fairly efficient. However, keen to maximise energy efficiency OVO chose to install Enistic multi channel sub metering solutions backed by our market-leading energy management software, Plato
James Allston, the energy efficiency lead for OVO said: “Key to our selection criteria was the platform’s drill-down and analytical functions. We wanted to be able to quickly identify opportunities and assess whether changes we were making were having an effect. We installed 39 sub-meters in the building allowing us to see a detailed breakdown of the energy consumption in the building but without spending a fortune and ‘over-measuring’.”
Below shows an example of the energy breakdown the Enistic energy management system provided:
QUICK WINS
The Enistic system quickly identified energy being wasted. For example, the 24kW used by electric heaters in the gym changing rooms kept on 24/7. Switching these off saved £10,000.
A night audit revealed that the central plant (heating, ventilation and air-conditioning equipment) was also running 24/7. Switching this from in-hand to auto saved another £10,000.
THE BIG SWITCH-OFF
The night audit also revealed that 30% of people were leaving their PCs running overnight. Control routines were added to the servers to centrally switch off all the PCs and printers once everyone had left the building.
To solve the issue of equipment being left running overnight, the security team was asked to switch off all the projectors and TVs in meeting rooms.
Time control was optimized on hot water taps and added to the water coolers. This only cost a few hundred pounds and saves over £1,000 a year.
BETTER BUILDING MANAGEMENT SAVES £100,000
Further investigations between OVO and The Green Consultancy (TGC) identified that the chiller and air handling scheduling had never been set up properly and was causing the entire building to be filled with chilled outside air every night. Not only was energy wasted running the fans, pumps and chillers, but the boilers were having to run overtime to reheat the building the next morning.
OVO also found that the heating and cooling for the building were set to 22 degrees, meaning they were fighting each other and running all day. Fixing those problems saved around £100,000 and reduced gas consumption by nearly 50%.
THANKS TO ENISTIC
Making energy savings has to start with efficient measurement. The potential for OVO’s savings were identified by the Enistic energy management system.
James Allston, Energy Efficiency Lead for OVO Energy, said:
“Installing the energy data management system provided by Enistic was the crucial first step in our plan to reduce the energy consumption at OVO Energy’s Bristol headquarters. Enistic’s system allowed us to drill down in the building’s energy consumption and identify saving opportunities. It also allowed us to collect the data we needed to set benchmarks and calculate savings. As a result we will be saving around £120,000 every year and have reduced our carbon emissions by 950 tonnes per annum.”
WHAT’S NEXT?
OVO is pleased to save 30%, but not complacent and plans to save more. Next steps include fine tuning the lighting controls, which OVO estimates will save at least £3,000, optimising the air pressure supply to save up to £10,000 more and fuel conditioning the boilers to reduce their energy consumption by another 10%.
GET IN TOUCH
If you are looking to reduce energy consumption contact the Enistic team on 0844 875 1600 or email [email protected]