Environmental Audit CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by John Taylor, TR Control Solutions Ltd
CONTRIBUTION OF AN RTD TO CENTRAL GOVERNMENT’S 10% REDUCTION PROGRAMME
In May 2010 the Prime Minister initiated the 10% reduction programme and he also announced that all central government HQ buildings would deploy a real-time energy display (RTD) to provide transparency of their energy consumption.
This written response to the EAC provides our assessment of the importance of the contribution of these RTDs towards the achievement of this 10% target.
1. “How well are we doing, today, this week, this month...?”
Imagine driving a car with no dashboard; you wouldn’t know how fast you were going, whether you were breaking the law and whether you had enough fuel for your journey.
Even if you have installed energy efficiency technologies in your building, if you can’t see what you’re using you could well be using far too much.
Those departments that made use of a real-time energy display, that also importantly displayed their building’s target (eg Ministry of Justice, Home Office, etc.), were able to monitor their performance hour by hour and day by day thus minimising their day to day energy waste. Those that also utilised an automated alerting capability were able to do this with a minimum of effort.
2. “We can’t change our behaviour and influence our building’s energy consumption because it’s all been automated but the FM can”
In our experience where the FM is engaged in the energy efficiency process and they have easy access to energy performance information (consumption and targets) via an RTD and they are made accountable for this performance, they can have a significant impact on a building’s energy consumption. Often they are provided with a complicated building management system to use that they have difficulty extracting useful data from and sharing this information with their client is often problematic.
What we have seen, is that a change in the behaviour of a facilities management contractor stimulated by an easily accessible RTD with targets and automated alerting can produce significant and sustained reductions in energy waste.
3. Technology + People + Process = Sustained Improvements
Real-time energy displays (like boiler replacements, voltage optimisation, behaviour·change programmes, PIR operated lights, etc.) whilst essential elements of an energy efficiency programme, they are only a part. Dedicated people (driven by targets) are another essential ingredient but without a systematic energy efficiency programme initial savings made can be lost over time and a disproportionate amount of time and money can be expended to achieve modest savings.
Working with a prominent central government ministry we have developed a systematic energy efficiency programme that builds upon central government guidance issued to FM contractors .(in July 2010) and also makes extensive use of the departments existing RTD. This programme has achieved very significant savings and it could easily be adopted by other departments as required.
26 July 2011