April 2023

On The Cover

Working with award-winning EPR Architects and Hollis M and E Consultants Zumtobel and its sister brand Thorn, both lighting brands of the Zumtobel Group have provided a complimentary lighting scheme to the Royal Society for Blind Children for its new uplifting centre.

EPR Architects were tasked with designing the charity’s new headquarters – a Life Without Limits Centre. The design transformed an unused basement car park on London’s South Bank, gifted by the Richard Desmond’s Building, into an engaging hub of activity.

The Zumtobel Group were approached by EPR architects to provide a lighting scheme that would bring the centre to life and make the new office spaces look fantastic.

SEE PAGE 28 for more details

FEATURES

BOILERS & BURNERS

10 The challenges of low-carbon heating

With decarbonisation on the agenda in many organisations, it’s important to be clear about the options available for provision of space heating and hot water. Ian Dagley discusses the issues

13 Knowledge is still the king

Moving from gas to sustainable electric water heating is full of pitfalls. Bill Sinclair guides energy managers through some of the do’s and don’ts of system sizing

14 Manufacturing industries need guidance

Keith Knowles debates what is needed to achieve the government’s ambitious net zero goal from an industrial point of view and whether greater government intervention is needed

16 Boilers & burners in action

A new boiler is saving residents up to 30 per cent in energy and boilers are set to figure in world first hydrogen trial

BUILDING ENERGY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

22 An energy harvest for the world

Self-powered devices that harvest energy from the environment and manual operation are a promising way forward in building automation. Graham Martin discusses their potential

24 Cope with data overload

With plant manufacturers now making available BEMS integration Simon Bowe looks at how end users can avoid being overwhelmed with too much data

COMPRESSED AIR

30 Small steps to greater efficiency

Vanda Jones considers the importance of regular and professional compressed air system maintenance as a means of reducing electricity consumption amid soaring energy prices

32 How to beat oil contamination

Mark Ranger explains the basics of producing oil-free compressed air. He outlines compressed air standards, compressor categories, and the technologies most suitable for specific applications

REGULARS

As the European Union slashes its gas use by almost 20 per cent, the UK stubbornly refuses to follow suit. Could a lack of Government commitment be hampering progress?

Follow us, ‘like us’ or visit us online to keep up to date with all the latest energy news and events www.eibi.co.uk

27 Net zero starts with digitalisation

Without embracing digitalisation to improve energy efficiency, Net Zero will be a target that continually moves out of reach, says EnergiRaven’s Jonathon Hunter Hill

17 Fundamentals CPD Series 20.9 Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme

Paul Bennett looks at the demands and benefits of this scheme that is now in its third phase

28

in Action

Kings Cross station undergoes a lighting refurbishment while field devices help educate the next generation of engineers

29

Viewpoint

Mervyn Pilley reflects on the Government’s mountain of paperwork that was Powering up Britain and its almost complete failure to include energy efficiency

33 New Products

Among the newly launched products this month is a WiFi controller for heat pumps

34 Talking Heads

Policy changes are on the way which will affect how businesses report their energy sourcing. Jaron Reddy explains why they need to act now

Photo courtesy of Zumtobel Group

Time for talk has passed

Mark Thrower

Managing editor of Energy in Buildings & Industry

Fund and Climate Change Agreement schemes.” It says it plans to pilot an energy advice service for SMEs, an earlier one run by the Carbon Trust having been abandoned in 2016.

You probably remember Grant Shapps, the business and energy secretary, giving energy-saving advice from his own home just a few months ago. However awkward he looked talking about boiler flow temperature you actually had the sense that the Government was beginning to get energy efficiency at last.

But one man making a brief appearance to give some household tips has not translated into new Government support for energy efficiency. All announcements in the new net zero plan, Powering up Britain, concerning energy efficiency were restatements or rebranding. The Government is apparently “putting measures in place to reduce demand from large businesses, and improve the efficiency of industrial processes through extensions to the Industrial Energy Transformation

Energy in Buildings & Industry

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Part of the long-standing Energy Company Obligation has been rebranded as a Great British Insulation Scheme, and will be ring-fenced for insulation projects – much as always used to occur. The three-year scheme will insulate just 100,000 homes per year.

The announcement comes hard on the heels of the announcement of the Government’s latest energy efficiency taskforce, set up primarily to “stimulate the supply chain to address and increase investment.” Fifteen

experts have been appointed to serve on the taskforce. When the body was initially announced, the government had stated that these “experts” would be drawn from the energy efficiency industry, and from local and regional government. But in practice there is nobody drawn from either sector. Where is the expertise from the lighting, insulation and heating sectors? And indeed from the wealth of expertise among trade bodies?

On the one hand we have a taskforce set up to help stimulate investment yet we have just had a budget that largely ignored energy efficiency. “It was disappointing that measures to improve the energy efficiency of our homes didn’t feature in the April Budget,” said Brian Berry, chief executive of the Federation of Master Builders (see page 8). “Keeping the energy price guarantee is a big win for homeowners’ pockets for now, but ultimately, money will keep leaking out of our draughty, inefficient homes until a sustained retrofit programme gets political backing.”

It doesn’t require another taskforce to find out what needs to be done. It just needs government to recognise the benefits of energy efficiency and then to get behind it.

Ultimately, money will keep leaking out of our draughty, inefficient homes

UK pays the price for scrapping policies

UK energy bills are £9.8bn higher than they would have been had climate abatement policies had not been scrapped over the past decade, according to Carbon Brief researchers.

These changes follow directly as a result of the policy decision by the Cameron government in 2013 to “cut the green crap”. (see EiBI April 2013).

This U-turn stopped new wind farms being built in England, and seriously cut programmes supporting photovoltaics. But most damaging of all has been the decimation done to the basic insulation refurbishment market. The number of UK homes installing loft or cavity wall insulation has actually fallen to 98 per cent below levels reached in 2012, according to official Government statistics. This includes a drop of 42 per cent in the year between 2021 and 2022, despite it being at a time of global energy crisis with consumers facing unprecedentedly high bills.

Had these savings measures abandoned in 2013 been continued, overall gas demand would have been 9 per cent lower during 2022. Some 73TW/hr of extra gas could have been saved. And Carbon Brief estimates that UK net gas imports would have been 23 per cent lower during that year.

The cost of scrapping climate policies over the past decade is put into stark relief by the £47bn price tag for government energy subsidies.

FUEL CONSUMPTION REDUCTION

Government names ‘experts’ for energy efficiency taskforce

Fifteen “experts” have been appointed to the government’s latest taskforce, charged with creating a “workplan” that will reduce overall fuel consumption levels by 15 per cent during this decade. This will be achieved by “accelerated delivery of energy efficiency measures across the economy.”

When the taskforce was initially announced, the government had stated that these “experts” would be drawn from the energy efficiency industry, and from local and regional government. But in practice there is nobody named drawn from either sector.

There is nobody involved with manufacturing energy saving materials. There is nobody involved with builders’ merchants, or the distribution sector. Most extraordinarily, nobody among the chosen “experts” has any experience of actually installing energy-saving measures, either into buildings or in industry.

The exclusion of any representatives from local government means that none of the “experts” have had to administer, or equally important, police compliance with efficiency programmes. The absence of effective compliance oversight has been a constant criticism levelled by the National Audit Office, as well as by parliamentary committees examining the impact of

Call for historic buildings to have retrofit strategy

Improving the energy efficiency of historic properties could reduce carbon emissions from the UK’s buildings by an estimated 5 per cent each year and generate £35bn of output in the economy, while making homes warmer and cheaper to run.

This is the conclusion of a new report, ‘Heritage and Carbon: Addressing the skills gap,’ commissioned by the National Trust, Historic England, the Crown Estate and property companies Peabody and Grosvenor.

The organisations have joined together to highlight the social, environmental and economic opportunities offered by building a workforce with the necessary skills and training to ensure the UK’s historic buildings contribute to a net zero future.

Buildings in the UK are responsible for around a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions, with historic buildings accounting for a significant proportion.

6.2m UK homes – around one in five – and a third of all

previous initiatives.

A series of working groups was created at the first meeting, held in March. One will cover industrial programmes: it is to be headed by Michael Leibreich, chairman and CEO of Michael Liebreich Ltd. A business consultant, he has not worked previously for any energy intensive manufacturing company, and is keen to rebrand energy efficiency as “energy productivity.”

The three others will cover the building stock. Running these are Laura Sandys CBE, a one-term Conservative MP (residential), Sir John Armitt, chair of the National Infrastructure committee (public sector buildings) and Simon McWhirter, the newly appointed

deputy CEO of the UK Green Building Council (commercial buildings). Presumably the responsibility for assessing how to deal with the commonplace situation of an office block with a private sector occupant, a public sector occupant, plus residential homes above, would be shared equally between all three buildings working groups.

Three CEOs of national companies are members. These are Graham Bell of B&Q (definitely not a member of the Building Merchants Federation), Carl Ennis of Siemens (smart meter manufacturers), and David Thomas of Barratts, whose new homes have been specifically criticised by Lord Deben, chair of the Committee on Climate Change, for skimping on installing energy-saving measures.

Although her members no longer fund mandated energy efficiency programmes, the CEO of Energy UK, Emma Pinchbeck, is surprisingly included as one of the “experts” on energy efficiency. Immediately after the inaugural meeting, she tweeted “one of the things I like about this Taskforce is it is explicitly not just about insulation.”

Despite the inclusion of several members from the finance sector, no decision has been taken as to whether any specific working party is required for them.

It is understood that the co-chair of the overall taskforce, Dame Alison Rose (pictured), intends to publish interim conclusions during this summer. Energy Secretary Grant Shapps is set to review its continuance later this year.

An estimated 100,000 people currently work on historic buildings. But up to 105,000 new workers – including 14,500 more electricians and 14,300 more plumbers – will be needed each year until 2050 to focus solely on upgrading buildings built before 1919. Plumbers will need to be able to work with heat pumps and hydrogen boilers, and many existing workers will need to be taught additional specialist skills to ensure heritage characteristics are protected and the work undertaken is appropriate to the type of construction.

“As Chris Skidmore’s net zero review identified, we need to grasp the historic opportunity tackling climate change offers us,” said Tor Burrows, Grosvenor’s executive director of sustainability and innovation.

commercial buildings – around 600,000 in total – were built before 1919.

The report highlights the vital contribution that historic buildings can make in the fight against climate change, and focuses on the scale of the opportunity to address the skills gap required to meet this challenge.

“The Environmental Audit Committee has called for a national mobilisation on energy efficiency. We believe this captures the urgency of the task. The UK needs a long-term national retrofit strategy, led by the government, positively bringing together training, funding, and standards to sensitively decarbonise our historic buildings.”

Net zero plan offers few new energy efficiency policies

Part of the long-standing Energy Company Obligation has been rebranded as a Great British Insulation Scheme, and will be ring-fenced for insulation projects – much as always used to occur. The three-year scheme will insulate 100,000 homes per year, apparently providing sufficient work for 2,000 installers. The money will be allocated as £130m in 2023/4, and £435m in the two subsequent years, Each home can receive only a partial grant, must currently be G to D rated in energy performance certificate (EPC) terms, can only have a single measure grant aided - e.g. not loft and wall insulation, and need not acquire a revised EPC. Hence, no home in this scheme will become net zero in consequence.

The Government also plans to lay legislation in the summer to improve the energy efficiency of owneroccupied homes, and respond to the consultation on improving home energy performance through lenders.

Cornish village makes the switch to GSHPs

A Cornish village has connected its first ground source heat pump (GSHP) to an ambient heat network, which is believed to be the world’s first shared ground array retrofit in a public highway.

The project aims to replace carbon-intensive oil or LPG fossil fuels with ground source heat pumps to meet 100 per cent of the property’s heating and hot water demand. Homeowners pay a monthly fee to access the heat network, similar to the gas connection fee.

The Government has released issued its new net zero plan, Powering up Britain. According to a wry Tom Burke, chair of the E3G consultancy, the 2,802-page document consists of “two research projects, two external reviews, three government responses, five competitions, seven consultations, seven policy statements. And a partridge in a pear tree to come”.

In practice, all announcements in the document concerning energy efficiency were restatements or rebranding. The Government is apparently “putting measures in place to reduce demand from large businesses, and improve the efficiency

of industrial processes through extensions to the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund and Climate Change Agreement schemes.” It plans to pilot an energy advice service for SMEs, an earlier one run by the Carbon Trust having been abandoned in 2016.

Europe proposes extending gas demand legislation

The European Commission has proposed a 12-month extension of emergency legislation to reduce gas demand by 15 per cent, due to expire at the end of March.

The move is aimed at ensuring preparedness for the next winter and minimising supply issues.

Continuing to cut gas use and filling storage throughout the summer would “help maintain current market conditions – with lower prices and less volatility than last year”.

EU Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson (pictured) said that despite progress in supply diversification and reduced dependency on Russia, global gas markets are expected to remain tight due to various risks and challenges.

“Our collective efforts on gas demand reduction have been key to get through this winter safely,” said Simson. “Continued gas demand reduction will ensure our preparedness for the next winter and allow us to reach more easily the 90 per cent gas storage target by 1

The day prior to publication, The Daily Telegraph stated that all existing rental buildings will have to meet an EPC rating of C. Back in 2020, the Government had said it wished to require this from 2025. But The Daily Telegraph revealed that this would not occur until 2028.

In practice, the Government merely said it would announce a decision “in due course” – the same wording it has repeated in parliamentary statements for the past three years. Instead, it promised to publish a summary of responses to that consultation it held back in 2020 on improving the energy performance of privately rented homes. But, it didn’t say quite when.

The in-road ground source heat pump network, also known as Networked Heat Pumps, in Collins Parc, Stithians, will consist of 42 boreholes, drilled to an average depth of 106m. The project, Heat the Streets, is run by Kensa Utilities and part funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

Devon swimming pool heated by data centre

Exmouth Leisure Centre in Devon has achieved significant energy savings by taking the waste heat generated by an on-site data centre and using it to heat a 25-metre swimming pool.

This is one of the first sites in the country to benefit from heatrecapture by a cloud data centre.

Installed by UK start-up Deep Green, the data centre comprises 12 servers and is roughly the size of a household washing machine. Described as a ‘digital boiler’, it uses a mineral oil immersion cooling system to capture the heat. The hot oil is then pumped into a heat exchanger, which warms the swimming pool water to about 30ºC for 60 per cent of the time.

Low-carbon R&D facility set for Hull

November. I count on the support of Member States for continuing this EU effort, all together.”

Latest available figures indicate that the introduction of this regulation last July has generated savings of 19 per cent, equivalent to 41.5 billion cubic metres, between August 2022 and January 2023, which helped mitigate security of supply issues to date.

Ideal Heating is to set up a £10m research and development facility at the manufacturer’s UK headquarters in Hull. The new facility, which is part of a wider £60m investment programme supported by parent company Groupe Atlantic, will play a key role in developing and testing low carbon heating solutions, such as air source heat pumps. Dependent on planning approval, construction is expected to begin this autumn, with the facility due to open in mid-2024.

All announcements in the document... were restatements or rebranding

Heat pumps could cut gas use by 50%

According to new analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), installing heat pumps in the UK at the same rate as Finland, Norway, and France could significantly reduce gas imports, with the installation of as many heat pumps as sold in Finland potentially cutting gas imports by half (49 per cent) by 2032.

The UK sold only 88 heat pumps per 100,000 people in 2022, while Finland and Norway sold 40 and 33 times more, respectively. If the UK installed heat pumps at the same rate as Finland, it could lower its total demand by 32 per cent, says the analysis.

In gas-rich Norway, heat pumps have become the main source of heating, with two-thirds of homes using them. If the UK installed heat pumps at the same rate as Norway by 2032, it could potentially lower total energy demand by around 28 per cent and reduce gas imports by 40 per cent, equivalent to 70 per cent of the UK’s domestic gas use.

The trend continues outside of Scandinavia, with almost all European countries outstripping the UK on sales of heat pumps.

MPs back low-carbon tech for new homes

Most MPs back proposals that would require new homes to incorporate solar panels, heat pumps, battery storage, and electric car charging points from 2025, a YouGov poll has shown.

Seven in ten MPs (69 per cent) believe all new homes should be built with solar panels on their roofs, and 67 per cent believe all new homes should have electric vehicle (EV) charging. There is also majority support for heat pumps to be mandatory for new homes.

The government is set to launch a consultation on the Future Homes Standard that will determine the regulations for new homes from 2025.

Net zero charity MCS Charitable Foundation, which commissioned the YouGov survey, argues that these renewable energy technologies should be the default in all new homes to help meet carbon targets.

David Cowdrey, director of external affairs at MCS Charitable Foundation, said: “MPs must now ensure that the Future Homes Standard fulfils the ambitions required to meet net zero targets, by mandating renewable energy on all new homes.”

ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN BUILDINGS

Charity identifies huge shortfall in skills to deliver energy efficiency

of jobs are stalled due to labour shortages.”

“It was disappointing that measures to improve the energy efficiency of our homes didn’t feature in the April Budget,” the federation’s chief executive, Brian Berry, said. “Keeping the energy price guarantee is a big win for homeowners’ pockets for now, but ultimately money will keep leaking out of our draughty, inefficient homes until a sustained retrofit programme gets political backing. It is one of the most pressing issues and could result in a huge boost in jobs and economic activity at the local level,” he added.

These “retrofits” could save an average family between 17.5 per cent and 37.5 per cent on their energy bills, depending on the measures taken. With an average household energy bill of around £2,500 a year, that means retrofitting would save between £437.50 and £937.50, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

A report from the Ashden climate change charity has identified a shortfall of 200,000 workers with the appropriate skills if the Government is to ensure all UK buildings meet an acceptable energy efficiency standard.

This standard is currently set as reaching Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rate C for residential

and B for non-residential by 2035. Only 29 per cent of UK buildings currently comply, meaning that 71 per cent, or around 17m properties, will need to be upgraded in just under 12 years.

The UK currently has about 200,000 retrofitters. But needs about 400,000 to hit that target. The Federation of Master Builders is highlighting the shortfall, warning that “60 per cent

Public buildings must reduce emissions ‘five times faster’

Public buildings must reduce carbon emissions five times faster than current rates to achieve the government’s net zero goals, or risk missing the 2037 carbon reduction target by a century.

This is according to the Public Building Energy Efficiency Report, which projects that nine out of ten (91 per cent) public buildings will need upgrading in the next seven years to meet net-zero targets.

The report, conducted by dedicated network service providers Neos Networks, examined the actual energy usage and efficiency of over 450,000 public buildings in England and Wales. It analysed their display energy certificates (DECs) and ‘operational ratings’ (annual CO2 emission kg per m²), and highlighted the areas requiring immediate action and major investment in retrofitting public building stock.

Over the past 15 years, the average annual reduction rate of CO2 emissions per m² in England and Wales was 0.62 per cent, but to achieve the UK government’s target of 75 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions by 2037, a much faster annual reduction rate of 3.75 per cent is required.

However, there is a mixed picture across the local authorities. Public buildings in a third (32 per cent) of local authorities have seen an increase in their CO2 emissions per m². In some areas, operational rating emissions have risen by over 70 per cent.

By contrast, more than two-thirds (68 per cent) of local authorities brought emissions down. Merthyr Tydfil (-68.20 per cent), East Hertfordshire (-54.23 per cent) and Portsmouth (-54.35 per cent) were the best performers, highlighting what’s possible with targeted investment.

However, Ashden warns that people are missing out on these savings because of the huge shortage of installation workers, which will leave many waiting as long as a decade to get work done. It is calling on the Government to invest in a major retraining programme. Without it the Government would have no chance of hitting its target to retrofit 17m UK properties by 2035.

The energy hungry man of Europe

As the European Union slashes its gas use by almost 20 per cent, the UK stubbornly refuses to follow suit. Could a lack of Government commitment be hampering progress?

In 2030, the UK will be consuming 15 per cent less fuel than we did at the start of the decade. That is now an absolutely firm government target.

The main problem is, right now the Government seems to be absolutely hell bent in ensuring that the commitment will not be met. Every opportunity to pursue policies that would help realise that ambition is being ignored. It isn’t even a matter of not taking new initiatives. It is much more the failure to follow up on all too many existing policies.

To begin with, what has been the official response to the tripling of wholesale gas prices? It has been to concentrate upon subsidising consumption. The Treasury is still claiming to pay around one half of the average householder’s fuel bills. Subsidising consumption has led to Government borrowing reaching its highest level in history.

Repeated warnings

It has coincided with repeated warnings from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that the failure to reduce energy profligacy is the biggest energy contribution to the faltering drive to combat over-heating of the planet. “The most cost-effective and environmentally friendly option is to avoid unnecessary consumption,” warns the IEA.

The IEA stresses that energy efficiency must be the ‘First Fuel’ in concerns about energy security. While the UK remains a founder member of the IEA, that didn’t deter us from publishing a much-hyped new energy security strategy last year, concentrating entirely upon augmenting sources of energy supply. Saying absolutely nothing of substance about options on

restraining energy demand.

Overall gas use in the 27-nation European Union plunged by a staggering 19.3 per cent from August 2022 to January 2023, compared with the five-year average for the same period. In contrast, Britain reduced consumption by less than 1 per cent.

As Dr Iain Staffell of Imperial College London, lead author of the quarterly Drax Electric Insights report on energy consumption, concluded: “The UK is an outlier on the world stage, showing no signs of reducing its appetite for gas during a time of dramatically higher prices.”

Stimulate energy efficiency

This Government was elected in 2019 promising to invest £9.3bn in public funding to stimulate energy efficiency up to 2024. Strangely, that figure seems to have been cut back to just £6bn. Although the current Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has probably ensured that initial pledge will be met, by offering last autumn to relieve the poor impoverished energy companies of any requirement to underwrite the costs of their Energy Company Obligation.

This is the latest incarnation of a 30-year-old programme, created following the “polluter pays” principle, requiring the purveyors of pollution to pay to install energy-saving measures into homes. The size of the programme is now far lower in real terms than a decade ago. But it is now the only UK-wide programme trying to combat the scourge of fuel poverty. A scourge that according to the Warm Homes & Energy Conservation Act 2000 was supposed to have been eliminated by 2016. When that Act was passed, there were just over 2m households reckoned to be in fuel

poverty. Current estimates are that this figure has actually quadrupled, with over 8m households suffering.

Perhaps the most frustrating lacuna is the failure to follow up on existing programmes. Some examples: new buildings are still being built to 2013 standards, ensuring even these will need serious retrofitting to ever be net zero. The Home Energy Conservation Act 1995 requires each housing authority to update annually its progress towards improving the existing building stock in this area. After initial enthusiasm, few bother and, crucially, nobody in central government cares.

Similarly, since 2018 no building - commercial or residential - is allowed to be let with an F or G energy performance certificate. Is this law really being policed? And back in 2020, the government published plans to expand this rental properties scheme to eliminate E and F ratings. But it has failed to announce how or when it will actually implement these requirements.

Rejection without explanation

The Government has rejected without explanation or justification a sensible House of Lords amendment to its Social Housing Bill to require all housing associations to upgrade their tenants’ homes to a C rating by 2030. Display Energy Certificates are supposed to be updated annually, and displayed prominently in every publicly funded building visited by the public. It is obvious that is not happening, and not being enforced. Proposals by former Prime Minister David Cameron to roll such virtue (or vice) signalling out to larger similar private sector buildings have never been pursued.

Schemes to incentivise local government to get more involved wax and wane. Arcane application processes often waste enormous time and resources. The Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme has never been promoted to become a catalyst for smarter energy efficiency programmes amongst SMEs. The list goes on. And on.

Both of the major vision schemes of the past decade, the Green Deal and the Green Homes Grant scheme, collapsed after an overnight withdrawal of political support. When the latter vanished, the National Audit Office published an excoriating report. It concluded by commanding the government to “set out by the end of 2021 how its various energy efficiency schemes fit with its overall plans for decarbonisation, setting out timescales in a more detailed and longer-term plan.”

Almost inevitably, nothing has happened in response. Despite literally dozens of studies pointing out how such initiatives could become reality, generating energy and carbon savings, neighbourhood upgrading, employment And so on.

We now have an official government taskforce charged with realising that 15 per cent reduction target this decade. Some are already asking whether that 15 per cent reduction target is feasible? During the decade between 2005 and 2015, final energy consumption dropped by 16.2 per cent. We have done it before. But are we prepared to make the tough decisions to do it again? ■

Andrew Warren Chairman of the British Energy Efficiency Federation

Subsidising consumption has led to Government borrowing reaching its highest level in history

BOILERS & BURNERS

The challenges of low-carbon heating

With decarbonisation on the agenda in many organisations, it’s important to be clear about the options available for provision of space heating and hot water. Ian Dagley discusses the issues

Ian Dagley

General manager at Hoval Ltd

www.hoval.co.uk

Now that all but a few die-hards accept the threat of climate change there is growing pressure on building owners and operators to ‘do their bit’ in facing up to these challenges. Inevitably, measures to decarbonise and ultimately achieve net zero carbon will need to address the efficiency of the heating systems.

In that respect, there have been suggestions that boilers could be replaced by heat pumps in residential and some non-residential applications. However, while there’s certainly scope for wider use of heat pumps, we need to be realistic about their limitations – playing to their strengths alongside other low-carbon technologies.

The appeal of heat pumps comes largely from their ability to provide heat with relatively low electricity consumption – ideally using electricity from renewable sources. There are limitations, though, to our renewable generation capacity, exacerbated by

competition from other growing uses, such as electric vehicles.

Capacity is also influenced by the amount of installed wind turbines and solar panels, along with the vagaries of the weather on which they are dependent.

Low water temperatures

A further limitation comes from the low water temperatures at which heat pumps operate if they are to deliver a sensible Coefficient of Performance (CoP). Increasing output temperatures serves to reduce CoP so getting the right balance is essential.

One result of lower water temperatures, compared to typical boiler outputs, is that existing heat emitters will not emit as much heat as they were designed to and would need to be replaced by larger emitters

to restore acceptable heating. Lower temperatures also limit the potential for heat pumps in the industrial sector, as process heating typically requires high temperatures.

It’s worth noting that new refrigerants are enabling heat pumps to operate with higher temperatures, though this may still have an impact on COP.

In residential applications there may also be the cost of upgrading the thermal insulation of the building and, possibly, needing to upgrade the electricity supply.

Despite these limitations, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that heat pumps still have an important role to play in the UK’s transition to net zero carbon. Their inclusion in a mixed heating system, for instance, can make significant inroads into carbon emissions.

For example, there are now air/water heat pumps entering the market that are designed specifically for high output applications in commercial and industrial applications, used on their own or – more likely - as part of a hybrid system alongside gas-fired condensing boilers.

Efficient space heating

It’s also worth noting that in industrial, logistic and ‘shed’ style retail premises, heat pumps can be incorporated into ventilation systems to provide highly efficient space heating and cooling.

All of which means there will continue to be a demand for heat sources that use combustion of a fuel, so it’s important to make combustion plant as efficient as possible. There is also some scope for future-proofing to make sure today’s boilers are ready for tomorrow’s alternatives to fossil fuels.

Given that combustion for heating is with us for the foreseeable future, there is a strong imperative to find suitable alternatives to fossil fuels. Hydrogen and biomethane are the main contenders for replacing natural gas and, of these, hydrogen is the most talked-about.

Introducing hydrogen will be a gradual process and blending it into the mains gas supply – up to 20 per cent by volume – is due to begin this year. In anticipation of this, there are now ‘hydrogen-ready’ boilers on the market. This designation indicates that not only can they run on gas with 20 per cent hydrogen now but can also be converted quickly and cheaply to 100 per cent hydrogen in the future. These are distinct from boilers designated as ‘hydrogen blend’ which can also use a 20 per cent blend but are not easily convertible to 100 per cent blend.

Improved controls

Switching to alternative fuels needs to be implemented alongside efficiency improvement measures – and can be instigated on a shorter timetable.

One key element of improved efficiency is control. Whereas a traditional boiler installation could be operated efficiently using some fairly basic control strategies, a mixture of heat sources requires a more sophisticated control strategy.

Alongside improved control, boiler design needs to incorporate features that reflect their potential use in a mixed heating system, as well as improving their inherent efficiency. For example, boilers in a mixed heating system will inevitably be firing less often and for shorter periods of time, often at part-load. Boiler designs that optimise efficiency at part-loads are therefore required, alongside the ability to work with any flow/return temperatures, for easy integration with existing systems. This is particularly important for retrofit efficiency projects.

Clearly we will see many more mixed heating systems in non-residential applications in the near future, exploiting the benefits of heat pumps while mitigating their limitations. Over a longer period we can expect to see alternative fuels gradually replacing fossil fuels. As yet, we haven’t got precise timescales to work with so Hoval is proactively addressing these challenges with new boilers and heat pumps that will give end clients the future-readiness they require. ■

Boiler design needs to incorporate features that reflect their potential use in a mixed heating system

Over a longer period we can expect to see alternative fuels replacing fossil fuels

Knowledge is still the king

Moving from gas to sustainable electric water heating is full of pitfalls. Bill Sinclair guides energy managers through some of the do’s and don’ts of system sizing

Bill Sinclair www.adveco.co

With the increased awareness of the role commercial buildings play in the generation of carbon emissions there is a growing desire to address the use of fossil fuels for heating and the production of hot water. This is especially true of public sector sites where government mandate on improving sustainability and dependence on public money go hand-in-hand to drive modernisation. At its simplest, this is resulting in a demand to remove existing gas-fired systems, replacing them with electric alternatives and renewables, namely heat pumps and solar thermal.

This process though is not only exacerbating oversizing, one of the most consistent issues seen in design of hot water systems, but is also reintroducing the issue of undersizing which had become rare with the predominance of high energy input, low storage gas-fired water heater systems.

Oversizing typically results from a lack of understanding of application design or concerns over providing suitable backup to ensure system continuity. The result of oversizing is, however, always the same. There are

unnecessary capital costs for system supply, installation and ongoing excess operational costs associated with higher energy demands and therefore greater carbon emissions.

As we move from gas to electric, the only thing that should increase in size is the hot water storage, but that’s not what is happening. Instead, we are seeing the specification of like-forlike electrical systems in place of the original gas. This is a guaranteed way to gain an oversized system.

Cause of original oversizing

‘Off the shelf’ design tools employing generic estimates are often the cause of original oversizing, but user perception can also overinflate actual demands. These are surprisingly common occurrences, and replacement simply increases the problems for an organisation that could already be overpaying for running costs. Now though it adds unnecessary capital costs to the replacement project in terms of size and number of water heating appliances and complexity of

Measured daily peak demand periods

installation. This becomes more time-consuming and disruptive than it needs to be. Getting that balance right is critical as per kW price of electricity remains much higher than that of gas. More importantly, if the new electric system is oversized the required amperage could exceed a building’s available electrical supply.

These pitfalls can be avoided by aggregating quality data. The application of a single non-invasive meter to the cold supply for as little as a month can provide the necessary real-world data. For greater accuracy further meters, particularly on the secondary return, provide for an indepth assessment of hot water use, preferably in six minute increments across each 24 hour period, especially for the time and duration of peak demands which is critical for correct sizing.

As well as metering the existing DHW system, it is important to establish basic information on energy sources, be they gas or electric, planned use of renewables such as heat pumps or solar thermal and

the level of system redundancy and backup. This helps steer the application design team to provide recommended alternatives that avoid common issues typically arising from oversizing.

Adveco recently assessed a dormitory site operating two 50kW output gas-fired water heaters and a pair of 140 kW boilers. Replacement plans included making use of two additional electric boilers with an air source heat pump (ASHP) to heat the building. Live metering indicated that the property exhibited an average daily usage of 1,793 litres with a maximum daily recorded usage of 2,407 litres, averaging out to 2,003 litres. The single peak, spread between 7am and 10am, was contrary to the perceived dual morning and evening peak. With a long, low single morning peak the theoretical design day hot water consumption could be established at 2,789 litres.

Meeting same requirements

On this basis, and assuming a 40°C preheat feed from the ASHP, 63°C storage and supply at 60°C with a 20 per cent uprate added to ensure any excessive demands would still be met by the system design, the same requirements could actually be met by just a 24kW electric boiler system with indirect 250-litre storage.

Because we do not want to undersize the storage, the specification would be for a 500L twin coil cylinder. The lower half would be preheated by the ASHP and the top half heated by the 24kW electric boiler. The storage cylinder is derated by 50% as only the top half is guaranteed to store water at a usable 60°C. A smaller boiler could be specified and would cope as well, but without the ASHP preheat the full 24kW would be required ramping up operational costs.

The proposed replacement system would have an estimated annual consumption of 616,564 litres. With an estimated 16,544kWh thermal energy demand for the year, carbon emissions fall from 8,340kg for the original gas-fired system to 3,250kg for the new electric heated system. A saving of 5,090kg per year.

However, annual electric running costs, despite a 25-35 per cent offset in energy from the heat pump, would be an estimated £2,813, compared to gas costs of just £689.

The advantage is clearly defined in the reduction of carbon emissions, and, as work continues to decarbonise the electricity grid, the emission reduction figures supplied in the new system design should improve considerably. ■

Technical director at Adveco

BOILERS & BURNERS

Manufacturing industries need more guidance

Keith Knowles debates what is needed to achieve the government’s ambitious net zero goal from an industrial point of view and whether greater government intervention is needed

Keith Knowles www.limpsfield.co.uk

Following stark warnings from climate experts, the UK government is considering bringing their net zero goal forward to 2040. On the one hand, the outgoing UK climate business expert Nigel Topping agreed that it’s possible, but only if the government were to make bolder policy decisions. On the other hand, in January, the Hydrogen Policy Commission (HPC) has released its report stating that the UK is behind its current milestones already. This highlights the gap between ambition and reality, even before the timeline has been brought forward by a decade.

I am heading up the CEA (Combustion Engineering Association) Hydrogen working group. I attend the PGES (All-Party Parliamentary Group for Energy Studies) and the Committee for Climate Change meeting. Across all these groups, I feel that there is too much discussion and not enough drive to put plans into motion. There is the government’s ‘Net Zero Strategy: Build Back Greener’, but it only contains decarbonisation policy proposals, it is not an outline of actions.

No hydrogen plan in place

In terms of hydrogen for example, it is the common consensus that we will burn hydrogen as part of a mix with other natural energy sources. Right now, there is no plan in place on how this will be done as part of the contribution to net zero in 2040. The government, in consultation with the combustion and manufacturing industries, needs to push the transition from burning natural gas to lower CO emissions to using natural gas cleanly and efficiently. This is in addition to establishing the technology and the infrastructure that allows for hydrogen use in locations where its usage is economically and

ecologically viable. We need a clearly laid out plan for the transition period that should include guidelines for industrial, commercial and domestic, covering wide ranging needs from heat demand and space to infrastructure and funding.

At Limpsfield, all our burners are hydrogen and gas blend ready as standard, requiring minimal retrofits for when hydrogen is available. Currently, this isn’t an industry standard, but it should be to ensure that any combustion solution installed drives net zero. In terms of hydrogen, it means putting technology in place that a) can burn hydrogen efficiently, but b) that also mitigates hydrogen’s high NOx values.

Expanding range of clean fuels

Also, in light of ever tightening emission standards (as they should) and an expanding range of clean fuels, we need increasingly flexible combustion solutions that go beyond hydrogen and/or gas mixes. Our customers incinerate anything from gas, oils, animal fats, wood, fish oils, waste oil, bio or landfill gases to hazardous waste, without harm to the environment – saving millions in energy and toxic waste disposal costs. Incentives to think outside the box and look at potential alternative energy sources that might not appear obvious at first glance should be part of the transition period plan. It is a question of engineering suitable combustion solutions, not question the suitability of a waste product as energy source.

We work with many wastewater treatment plants that have an

Manufacturers should not be left on their own in their decarbonisation efforts

abundance of biogas as a by-product. Building custom engineered solutions, the new burner and associated equipment have a measurable ROI in fuel cost savings, not to mention savings in waste disposal costs. Also, these biofuels can be easily supported by natural gas when needed to mediate the changeover to a more sustainable process. It proves that green energy doesn’t have to be expensive, if manufacturers work with combustion engineers on bespoke solutions for their plants.

Transition plan required

Moving from industrial to the public, the domestic sector too requires a well-thought-out transition plan. One step is the ‘Hydrogen Village’ in Whitby which is due to launch in 2025, but residents are hesitant to embrace it for a variety of reasons. Some argue that installing the infrastructure to supply hydrogen in homes will cause less disruption than heat pumps, while opponents counter with safety issues due to leakage, hydrogen’s reduced efficiency and higher costs compared to alternatives.

Realistically, where the infrastructure upgrade is economically viable,

domestic households will be burning hydrogen at some point in the future as part of a sustainable energy mix. Right now, only a fraction of domestic boilers can burn hydrogen. It is proposed that from 2026, all newly installed boilers should be hydrogen ready.

However, that’s only 14 years away from the new net zero deadline. How will the government enforce the upgrade for millions of boilers after 2040 that aren’t hydrogen ready and will still require fossil fuels for the areas that will use hydrogen?

Taking it one step further, there aren’t many home appliances that are set up to work with hydrogen. Will the government and/or hydrogen suppliers subsidise the costs for the end user?

If the government wants to push the adaptation of hydrogen and alternative fuels, we need subsidies and financial support, alongside more communication and education for both businesses and the public. Specifically for businesses, we need clear guidelines, so manufacturers aren’t left on their own in their decarbonisation efforts – be that using hydrogen or alternative fuels at their disposal. ■

Managing director, Limpsfield Combustion Engineering Ltd

Massive energy savings for London apartment residents

Residents at 10 Berkeley Street, located at the heart of Mayfair in the West End of London, are benefitting from 33 per cent energy savings, thanks to two THISION L PLUS 200kW wall-hung boilers from ELCO. The Berkeley Street property contains 19 highend residential apartments, each utilising the boilers for their heating and hot water requirements.

The building was previously heated by two Regency boilers that had been installed under the MHS Boilers name. Aaron Housen, of commercial heating specialists Dunamis Heating & Mechanical Services, was asked to service these ageing boilers by the owner of the property – prior to then being approached to replace the products with a more efficient system.

Commenting on the project, Housen explained: “The plant room at Berkeley Street is very compact – there isn’t much space in there. So, when the owner came to us looking for an alternative, we had to look at designing a new system,

considering what products we could use to maximise the space without compromising energy efficiency.”

The two new boilers were fitted in cascade and installed over a three-week period, which included the time taken to lay the foundations for the switchovers to temporary plant while the renovation work took place. Site time was kept to a minimum, thanks to the THISION L PLUS having the circulation pump, as well as the associated non-return valves for heating water and the flue included as standard. ■ www.elco.co.uk

BABCOCK WANSON has launched the TwinPack range of twin-furnace firetube boilers for steam outputs from 30t/h to 58t/h, providing high efficiency with very low CO2 and NOx emissions.

The company says it has designed its burner management system and matched combustion head for precise control of excess air throughout the modulating range, and nondegraded operation at very low load. The simultaneous operation of the burners guarantees an exact thermal load distribution while ensuring maximum flexibility in operation and burner turndown ratios of up to 30:1 on natural gas (mixed and dual fuel firing options are also available). Efficiency can be further enhanced by up to 105 per cent when a TwinPack boiler is specified in conjunction with a Babcock Wanson economiser and heat recovery system.

This precise match between the boiler and burners not only ensures optimal combustion, but also impacts emissions levels with TwinPack boilers

boasting the lowest practicable CO2 emissions. The specialist burner technology employed by TwinPack boilers also ensures very low NOx emissions to readily meet and often exceed environmental regulations.

TwinPack boilers are fitted with comprehensive instrumentation and controls for easy and economic operation. These include the Navinergy system which allows local operation via the boiler HMI plus remote monitoring through a web interface. ■ www.babcock-wanson.com

Boilers heading to 'world first demonstration' Efficiency means that boilers fit the curriculum

ATAG COMMERCIAL says its XL-F and XL-W boilers boast high levels of energy efficiency and reliability, making them suitable for schools and other educational establishments. Each boiler is available in six models, offering outputs from 70kW to 200kW from a single unit

and up to 1.6MW in cascade.

All models can be installed in cascade in-line or back-toback, offering gas engineers and specifiers the flexibility required when working on a school installation.

There are over 32,000 schools in the UK, with each one requiring adequate levels of heating and hot water for students and members of

staff alike. ATAG Commercial’s XL-F and XL-W boilers are the perfect option for these educational environments, thanks to their size, outputs and flexibility. Lightweight and compact, multiple units can also be fitted on the same system, while offering improved turndown ratios and modulation capacity.

All XL-F and XL-W units

can be installed in cascade arrangements of two to eight boilers, ensuring reliability of ignition. Plus, with eight models within the range boasting twin heat exchanger technology, there is the added benefit of built-in redundancy inside each boiler, as each component can operate independently of the other. ■ www.atagcommercial.co.uk

BAXI will be supplying its 100 per cent hydrogen boilers for the H100 Fife Project, a world-first hydrogen-tohomes demonstration delivered through a partnership between gas distribution company SGN and Fife Council in cooperation with industry regulator Ofgem. The new facility will comprise two hydrogen show homes where visitors will be able to try out domestic hydrogen appliances, including Baxi’s 100 per cent pure hydrogen boilers.

The H100 Fife project enables households in the Buckhaven and Denbeath areas of historic Methil on the south Fife coast, to opt-in to be supplied with hydrogen through a new network which is due to go live in 2024.

The scheme has already signed up over 300 householders who want to be part of the first 100 per cent green hydrogen-to-homes zero carbon network anywhere in the world. Their participation will provide important behavioural and social evidence critical to help the UK decarbonise home heating. Green hydrogen will be supplied via the dedicated ORE Catapult 7MW wind turbine connected to an on-site electrolyser and storage facility. Modelling shows the turbine could provide the energy to produce enough hydrogen for up to 900 homes a year. ■ www.baxi.co.uk

Twin-furnace boilers offer high efficiency, low CO2 emissions

For details on how to obtain your Energy Institute CPD Certificate, see ENTRY FORM and details on page 20

Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS)

By Paul Bennett, managing director of BSSEC

The Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) is the UK’s energy assessment and energy saving identification scheme that was established by the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme Regulations in 2014. ESOS was originally designed to meet the requirement of Article 8 (4-6) of the EU Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) but is now seen as a useful mechanism in the UK’s journey towards net zero. The scheme is operated and managed by the Environment Agency on behalf of the

British Government and is estimated to lead to £1.6bn net benefits to the UK, with the majority of these being directly felt by businesses as a result of energy savings.

Organisations that qualify are required to carry out assessments every four years, in each ‘phase’ or ‘compliance period’ of the scheme. The scheme is currently in its third phase which began on 6 December 2019 and will conclude on 5 December 2023. This means that participants of the scheme must be fully compliant by 5 December 2023.

ESOS compliance is mandatory for all large organisations and groups in the UK that meet the definition of a large undertaking before 31 December 2022. A large undertaking is defined as any UK organisation that meets one or both of the following two conditions:

● it employs 250 or more people; and

● it has an annual turnover in excess of £44m and an annual balance sheet total in excess of £38m.

The original policy objectives of ESOS were:

● to provide large enterprises with organisation-specific information about how they could make energy savings;

● to stimulate the take-up of cost-effective energy efficiency measures by businesses.

Strengthening ESOS

To reflect on the scheme’s success, an ESOS Post-Implementation Review (PIR) was published in February 2020 by BEIS (Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy). It highlighted several areas where ESOS had been successful, but also how it could be further strengthened.

The review concluded that ESOS had been largely successful in meeting its original policy objectives. Other successes include the fact that annual energy savings from ESOS were roughly in line with the 3.0TWh per year that was originally estimated and that the costs of compliance were also broadly as estimated. Significantly, the evaluation also found that organisations were unlikely to carry out an energy audit unless mandated to do so. In fact, the introduction of ESOS led to many organisations carrying out an energy audit for the first time. These findings reaffirmed the need for ESOS for improving energy efficiency in UK business.

Significant areas for improvement were also highlighted. For example, while 90 per cent of the organisations in the evaluation reported planning or implementing an energy efficiency measure, only 6 per cent of measures were directly attributed to ESOS. Furthermore, it was highlighted that many organisations viewed ESOS as purely a compliance activity, and as a result tended to select external assessors who provided the lowest quote, instead of the best qualified to audit their operations. This in turn had a knock-on effect on the quality of recommendations made, in terms of both their efficacy and practicality. Other suggestions have been made to improve ESOS. For example, that synergy with other existing business-targeted energy efficiency policies would be beneficial. Also, the introduction of the UK net zero by 2050 target has changed the context in which ESOS is viewed. ESOS was not established with net zero in mind, but it has been recognised by the Government that ESOS has the potential to play a significant role in encouraging low-carbon energy solutions, and hence has the potential to aid in meeting this target.

Environment Agency Enforcement Statistics & Feedback for ESOS Phase II

In terms of enforcement it is notable that the Environment Agency has so far issued the following notices and penalties for ESOS phase II:

● 2,751 compliance notices;

● 2,133 enforcement notices;

● 123 Civil Penalties amounting to £1,927,761;

● Average penalty value £15,700.

The reported areas in which the Environment Agency have found issues requiring corrective action have included:

● organisation structure;

● total energy consumption and significant areas of energy consumption;

● sampling approach and quality of ESOS energy audit; and

● energy-saving opportunities.

The process of identifying suitable changes for Phase III began in July 2021, when the UK Government released a consultation on options to strengthen ESOS. Based on the findings of reviews such as PIR, 34

questions were asked covering the following:

● how the quality of reports could be improved;

● how the quality of audits could be improved;

● how the net zero challenge should be addressed;

● whether public disclosure of ESOS data to increase ESOS recommendations uptake would be a good idea;

● whether the scheme should be extended to medium-sized businesses; and

● other methods to increase uptake of recommendations.

Eighty nine industry experts responded to the proposed questions, and in July 2022, the Government issued their response, which outlines the changes to be made for Phase III. Seven key areas for improvement were identified for ESOS Phase III:

Standardisation of ESOS reports

In order to improve the quality of reports it is now mandatory for reports to capture more information concerning compliance details. The following details are now required to be included in ESOS Lead Assessor reports:

● organisational details including corporate group structure, highest UK parent (and overseas where appropriate), Companies House registration numbers for the entities

in the group and Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes;

● reason for qualification in ESOS – based on employee numbers, turnover, balance sheet or inclusion in corporate group;

● route(s) to ESOS compliance used;

● ESOS lead assessor details and details of all other personnel involved in conducting site visits and/or completing the report;

● total energy consumption (TEC), significant energy consumption (SEC) and any de minimis exclusions;

● if ISO 50001 certification is used, an explanation of how certification scope matches (or otherwise) the scope required by the significant energy consumption;

● use of 12 months energy data and energy profiling for ESOS compliance;

● number of sites, site sampling method used and rationale for this method;

● brief summary of the main audit findings (eg total savings identified) and actions taken since any previous audit.

● confirmation that the board member signing off the lead assessor report is an Executive Director for the highest UK parent, as registered with Companies House.

De minimis reduction

The term ‘de minimis’ refers to the percentage of an organisation’s

energy consumption that does not have to be included within the ESOS report. As part of Phase III, this has been decreased from 10 per cent to 5 per cent. There are two primary reasons for this change. The first is that it should allow for more consistency between organisations of different sizes. This is because an exemption of 5 per cent means it is less likely that a large organisation with a high energy consumption is able to exclude sites or transport larger than other participants’ total energy use. The second is that organisations have built up a good energy portfolio over the course of previous ESOS Phases, so considering parts of the significant energy consumption that may not have been looked at in previous Phases will aid organisations in better understanding their energy profiles.

Energy intensity metric

It will become mandatory for reports to include an energy intensity metric, which is a measure of energy consumption per unit and allows for comparison between, for example, buildings of different sizes. Suitable units are kWh/m for buildings, kWh/ unit output for industry, and kWh/miles travelled for transport.

This has been added partly to align ESOS with existing SECR (Streamline Energy & Carbon Reporting) requirements that require use of energy intensity metrics. Most importantly, their inclusion

will allow for comparison between the performance of a given site or transport method in different phases, highlighting the effect of ESOS on energy savings. Additionally, it would allow organisations to easily rank their sites. While this is not particularly useful for organisations with a very diverse profile of sites, it will likely be of considerable benefit to organisations with many similar sites. This is because it will allow them to identify those with the highest energy consumption per unit, and hence target recommendations to yield the greatest energy savings.

Better guidance on next steps

It has become mandatory for ESOS reports to provide improved guidance on next steps. This should make it easier for organisations to implement energy savings recommendations. Examples of effective guidance include:

● signposts to existing Government support, including funding schemes such as the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (IETF), impartial advice, and the Government-maintained Energy Technology List which gives information on best practice energy efficient technologies;

● some consideration of appropriate financing mechanisms, such as Energy Service Company (ESCo) models for more major investments;

● packaging recommendations together into a suggested programme of works. For example, packaging a range of very low-cost and medium-cost actions together into a programme of work that pays back within three years;

● recommendations that reflect both what is possible under the terms of the lease and what an appropriate intervention point might be. For example, waiting until natural replacement cycles to replace expensive plant room equipment.

Publishing an action plan

Organisations will be required to publish an action plan following the Phase III compliance deadline and to record their progress annually. An action plan is a document that outlines practical steps to meeting energy savings goals. It should also highlight possible barriers to success and suggest how these could be overcome.

Organisations will be required to report progress annually via the energy efficiency section narrative in SECR reports. For organisations that are not in scope of SECR, a reporting function via the ESOS web portal will be made available for their annual progress reporting.

Recommendations template

It is possible that a template will be

● W1 = Waste of approx 15 kW per HH (30 kW per hour) between 0000 and 0700 – suspected to be small power equipment and computers on overnight – investigation needed.

● W2 = Waste of approx 25 kW per HH between 0430 and 0700 – investigation needed.

● W3 = Waste of approx 15 kW per HH for Saturday and Sunday – suspected to be lights and computers switched on – investigation needed.

● W4 = Waste of approx 15 kW per HH (30 kW per hour) between 0000 and 0700 – suspected to be equipment and computers on overnight – investigation needed.

Compliance stages for ESOS Phase III

QUALIFICATION ASSESSMENT

▼

APPOINT A LEAD ASSESSOR

▼

MEASURE TOTAL ENERGY CONSUMPTION

▼

DE MINIMIS CALCULATION

▼ SAMPLING FOR AUDITS

▼

CARRY OUT ENERGY AUDITS

▼

IDENTIFY SIGNIFICANT ENERGY CONSUMPTION

▼

MEASURE ENERGY INTENSITY

▼

IDENTIFY ENERGY SAVING MEASURES

▼ AGREE ACTION PLAN

▼

PRODUCE REPORTS & RECOMMENDATIONS

▼ DIRECTOR SIGN OFF

▼

SHARE WITH SUBSIDIARIES

▼ NOTIFY ENVIRONMENT AGENCY

However, some of the changes that have been discussed include:

provided for ESOS recommendations. The Government plans to take forward proposals that meet the criteria of being able to effectively engage senior management teams and being easily adaptable.

Sharing report with subsidiaries

Organisations will be required to share reports with subsidiaries within their corporate group. An ESOS evaluation highlighted that only 50 per cent of ESOS participants take any action to share ESOS results with other organisations in the corporate group, which inhibits undertakings below the parent level from taking up recommended actions.

The planned changes for Phase IV have not as yet been decided.

● the introduction of an energy consumption threshold to be in line with the SECR scheme;

● tighter rules (clarity) around the sampling of sites with rules on the minimum numbers of sites to be audited;

● removal of DECs and GDAs as compliance routes;

● focus on energy management and behaviour change in energy audits;

● clarity on the use of half-hourly data in energy audits;

● net zero PAS standard for ESOS audits to be developed and net zero included in energy audits.

EN 16247 or ISO50002 standard adoption for energy auditing.

Recommendations templates to be developed.

ESOS public reporting on progress of implementation and results.

All the above demonstrates best practice and ESOS participants are welcome to include these aspects in their reporting as a voluntary addition to the current Phase III requirements.

Useful Links

• Compliance https://www.gov.uk/government/ publications/comply-with-the-energy-savingsopportunity-scheme-esos/complying-withthe-energy-savings-opportunity-schemeesos#what-esos-is-and-who-it-applies-to

• ESOS Lead Assessors https://www.gov.uk/ guidance/energy-savings-opportunity-schemeesos#approved-registers-of-esos-leadassessors

• Energy Institute ESOS Phase III CPD https:// www.energyinst.org/whats-on/search/eventsand-training?meta_eventId=2301ESOSCPDTR

• Energy Auditing Training to BS EN 16247 https:// academy.theiet.org/energy-audits-course

Fig 1. Example of Half Hour Analysis Showing 4 Areas of Identified Waste W1, W2, W3 and W4.

BUILDING ENERGY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

for managers and decision makers to view and act on.

These advances are highlighted in the example of “The Squaire” – a smart building in Frankfurt, Germany. Here the installation of more than 20,000 wireless and battery-free sensors and switches saved over 95km of cabling and many person-years of installation time.

Energy to power sensors

Let us review four effective ways to harvest energy that’s freely available in the typical building environment and using it to power sensors that collect data and even actuators to control outputs.

An energy harvest for the world

Self-powered devices that harvest energy from the environment and manual operation are a promising way forward in building automation. Graham Martin discusses their potential

Graham Martin www.enocean-alliance.org

Chairman and CEO, EnOcean Alliance

buildings is quicker than building new ones and is the only option that can meet the increasingly urgent climate and sustainability goals.

Most of the world’s offices are underused, thereby overusing power and materials just when these resources are becoming scarcer and more costly. In the past year, energy prices have doubled or tripled in parts of the world, for example, Europe.

The coronavirus pandemic may be over, but the trend to hybrid working casts its shadow. Post COVID-19, office spaces remain 50 per cent to 70 per cent occupied - leaving 30 per cent to 50 per cent energy wasted and a legacy of unnecessary CO₂ output. Meanwhile, cabling and batteries are draining resources such as copper and lithium. This is taking place in the context of pressure from world leaders to reduce carbon emissions and reverse the impact of global climate change.

Emissions from buildings are a significant issue. Globally, buildings account for almost 40 per cent of the world’s energy usage and are responsible for 36 per cent of global CO₂ emissions. To meet the United Nations and other climate goals, it is imperative to make buildings more energy efficient. Retrofitting old

Responding to these challenges highlights significant differences between hard-wired, proprietary solutions and wireless, standardised, extensible solutions. Such challenges can be addressed by open wireless systems. These benefit from an open data interface and even the option to extend the existing system with sensor types (such as CO₂, desk utilisation or temperature sensors).

Inflexible wired solution

Wired sensors are not cost-effective. With wiring costs of over €100 per sensor, the typical acquisition costs are tripled. A wired solution is also inflexible; each time a change is made, time is lost, and new wiring costs are incurred. Wire-free communication eliminates the need for installing new cabling and for physical access to the existing building automation system. Self-powered sensors further optimise the installation - with an open system configuration alongside broad support for additional sensor types. With new buildings, smart features can be designed in the early planning stage. They can then be implemented while eliminating cables and removing reliance on batteries.

Maintenance-free wireless devices with energy-harvesting technology use environmental energy as their source of power. Innovations over the

past ten years have demonstrated the success of greener self-powered devices, where kinetic energy, light, magnetic fields and temperature differences can all be used to generate sufficient electricity.

Thanks to these sensors, the smart building can monitor the status of its environment and use this data to make any necessary adjustment or for analytical purposes. The data is gathered and processed by a cloud-based IT platform, as a digital twin if required. The physical space is combined with digital services and analytical tools. A dashboard can then present the data in a user-friendly way

Smart-building devices can generate electricity from kinetic energy. One press of a button can generate enough power to send a radio signal to dim the lights. The PTM switch module has created an international industry standard that makes it particularly easy for manufacturers to integrate the module into all common switch design variants. The basis for this is the electromechanical energy converter which – like a bicycle dynamo –generates energy when the switch is being pressed. This energy harvesting technology, kinetic switches are a resource-saving alternative to battery-powered or wired switches. An identifying code embedded in each radio transmission matches a particular switch to an individual light, allowing thousands of switches to be used in the same building without any interference. Each signal can be received up to 300m away (free field. Inside a building typically 15 to 30m)

Another option is to harvest the ambient light, by generating and storing electricity from solar cells. A solar-powered sensor can measure for example temperature, humidity, occupancy, air quality or door/window status with low power consumption and high reliability. The modules’ tiny internal storage enables transmission of measured values even in total darkness for many days.

The combination of intelligent wireless buildings with energyharvesting controls and operation is the key that unlocks the potential of smart buildings and makes the technology economic and practical in new construction and retrofit situations. The elimination of cabling minimises installation costs, the elimination of batteries eliminates operating costs, and together they create a solution that is maintenancefree and can be quickly and easily adapted to changing operational requirements while optimising energy use and costs at any time. ■

A smart building can now monitor devices such a heating valve actuator

BUILDING ENERGY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

How to cope with data overload

With plant manufacturers now making available BEMS integration, Simon Bowe looks at how end users can avoid being overwhelmed with too much data

Simon Bowe

www.curaenergy.co.uk

Control and monitoring of the energy consuming systems connected in a building allows the end user to manage the building and control energy usage a lot easier than by manual intervention.

A BEMS is no longer limited to hard-wired integration of these data points and is now open to much more information.

With the current prevalence of BEMS software integration with the buildings plant and equipment’s own packaged control systems (via BACNET, Modbus etc), the amount of data available for the BEMS to utilise is now enormous.

BEMS software integration is available via a single hard-wired data cable which opens up a vast array of data.

The plant and system manufacturers are increasingly providing their own

proprietary packaged control systems with inbuilt BEMS interfaces. They open their packaged controls up for integration and make every single internal data point available for reading or writing by the BEMS.

Use critical data

In some instances this data is critical to the operation and maintenance of the plant and affects the way the BEMS controls or manages the equipment. This critical data should be integrated into the BEMS and used as necessary obviously on the basis that software points do not replace essential hardwired interlocks! It is worth emphasising that a software data point is no substitute for an important hardwired signal such as fire or CO alarm.

Once the critical or useful data is identified and used, you are left with many internal software points available that may mean something to the plant or equipment manufacturer when carrying out a service or maintenance but are not useful to the end user or the company managing the building.

For example, if a BEMS reports a chiller is in ‘fault,’ the end user would use this information to contact the relevant specialist to contact the correct specialist supplier. The chiller specialist would then attend site to identify the fault and rectify it regardless of the amount of additional data on the BEMS. The data being displayed on the BMS is useful to no one apart from the chiller engineer who doesn’t need it as he would be using his own fault diagnostic software when attending site.

This additional plant data still needs to be processed, displayed and stored by the BMS which incurs additional cost through additional BMS hardware and engineering time. For data that is not needed or used it is a cost that could be saved.

BEMS data overload point

The BEMS data overload point is well illustrated by considering the monitoring of energy metering data on a BEMS. As we know, energy sub metering is an essential tool in any energy management and saving plan to allow the size and scope of the energy consumption within a building to be identified, measured, overuse actioned and then validated. A wellinstalled and thought-out energy metering installation covering a

recommended over 90 per cent of the buildings energy usage is essential.

However in terms of data overload, it can easily lead to large amounts of data being unused. For example a MODBUS electric meter will provide a myriad of datapoints covering kWh, kW, amps per phase, volts per phase, kVAR, PF etc., via a MODBUS interface.

Superfluous information

If the end user is simply interested in measuring a kWh saving or reading to validate an energy project or maintain a base line, the rest of that data is superfluous and not used. There is no need to read, display or store the additional data on the BEMS.

Supplying energy metering data to the end user should be tailored to what they need the data for. This can be done by a simple discussion or RFI exchange.

To avoid this data overload, consideration should be given right at the start of a project to how that data is going to be utilised and in what format is it needed i.e. graphical interface, data file, local HMI etc. The data needs to be relevant to the end user or else they will not use it.

With project costs being a constant focus and businesses being asked to put forward value engineered options the cost for additional hardware and software to process needs to be considered. The specification and design of a BEMS system needs to take into consideration what is required from an operational aspect which is critical and then overlaid with what the end user wants to see.

With this defined the end user will have a system that not only operates efficiently but is more specific to their requirements without the overload of data.

To keep the amount of data relevant to the actual end user the following three steps should be followed:

● understand the end user’s requirements from the start;

● implement the BEMS to suit the end user through bespoke design (software and hardware); and

● instruct the end user on how to access and use their data.

Following these three steps will not only reduce overall project costs via a reduction in hardware and software engineering but will also make the data more useable and user friendly for the end user in their chosen display format. Only import data into a BEMS if it is relevant and useful to the person looking at it. ■

Consideration should be given at the start of a project to how data is going to be used

Supplying energy metering data should be tailored to the end user's needs

Technical director at Cura Energy

BUILDING ENERGY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Net zero starts by digitalising

Without embracing digitalisation to improve energy efficiency, net zero will be a target that continually moves out of reach, says EnergiRaven’s Jonathon Hunter Hill

Jonathon

Hunter Hill

EnergiRaven & Sector manager – education, SAV Systems

www.sav-systems.com

When it comes to heating buildings in the UK, it seems our biggest challenge isn’t so much an energy crisis as an energy-waste crisis.

Historically, we have largely ignored the performance of space heating systems for two reasons: energy was cheap, and carbon emissions were of little concern. But with today’s skyrocketing gas prices, rising inflation, energy security concerns, and impending net zero targets – if this isn’t the time to embrace efficiency with open arms, when is?

The scale of the challenge is on full display in the education sector. Over 60 per cent of our schools were built before 1976, and from a heating perspective, they’re prime examples of inefficiency in action. Despite ongoing funding crises and around half of UK schools considering layoffs to reduce costs, most are continually (and unknowingly) wasting vast sums of money on neglected, inefficient space heating. The problem largely

stems from the lack of visibility; as long as classrooms remain warm, there’s little or no interest in whether their heating systems are working efficiently or even correctly.

Growing headwinds

In addition to these financial struggles, there are growing headwinds on the environmental front as well. As part of the government’s 2050 net zero target, the Department for Education (DfE) declared that new schools should consume a mere 8kWh per square meter for room heating. Yet staggeringly (but perhaps unsurprisingly), many existing schools average more than ten times this amount. In response to these challenges, many schools are taking green measures such as installing large solar arrays or replacing gas boilers with complex networks of heat pumps. However, without first taking steps to improve efficiency, these capital-intensive efforts are chasing targets that will continue moving further away.

To make meaningful progress toward net zero emissions, schools and other organisations first need to close the energy performance gap. This requires a three-stage approach: reducing energy waste, making existing systems more efficient, and investing in renewable or low-carbon heating and electricity.

Reducing waste starts with measuring energy consumption and comparing the data against predefined criteria. Schools and facility managers can begin this process by adopting digital energy metering, which countries like Denmark have used successfully for over 20 years. These systems automatically capture hourly readings from heating, electricity, and water meters and then determine the average kWh/m , the vital baseline needed to reduce heating demands. Unlike the lowresolution overviews provided by monthly readings, hourly readings generate 8,760 annual data points from each meter, making it simple to identify consumption spikes or excessive heating outside of school hours.

Holistic approach

For the best long-term results, digitalisation forms one element of a holistic approach combining education, planning, and user-friendly reporting. Engaging a digital platform puts valuable data in the hands of the people who need it, coupled with smart incentives that drive productive behaviour. For example, an alert about a heating malfunction may prompt a facility manager to schedule a service call - but what if the notification also included the financial cost of not addressing the problem? Basic human

psychology tells us this method will deliver faster and more positive customer outcomes.

For managers overseeing complex portfolios, digitalisation also unlocks energy benchmarking, making it simple to prioritise sites that can achieve the highest cost and carbon savings. In many cases, monitoring identifies schools that heat empty classrooms on weekends, a straightforward problem to rectify that can immediately reduce consumption by up to 20 per cent. To improve efficiency, schools can also adopt mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR), which can save 4.5 times the energy compared to traditional ventilation solutions.

Commercial heat networks

As part of the national net zero push, a growing number of schools are upgrading to communal heat networks for space and water heating. Within these systems, maximising the difference between the supply and return temperature (delta T) is vitally important. In fact, lowering the return temperature from 50°C to 35°C can reduce pumping and water requirements by around 40 per cent. Using a digital monitoring platform, facility managers can configure alarms to help them make immediate and informed performance improvements. In addition to offering greater economy, heat networks can also be designed to utilise waste heat from local industry and other sources, increasing the sustainability of the entire system.

In many ways, the UK’s energywaste crisis reinforces the age-old business mantra that you can’t manage what you don’t measure. Without digitalising energy consumption, schools will continue flying blind and squandering their vital funds on ineffectual heating. In addition, with amplifying calls to decarbonise, energy efficiency is critical to minimising the cost and complexity of green investments. After all, why sink precious capital into hundreds of solar panels or oversized heat pumps, when it’s easier to reduce consumption and spend the money on staff and resources instead?

The good news is that all of the required monitoring and lowcarbon technologies are available today; what’s needed is a holistic, results-driven approach to building energy management. By embracing digitalisation, UK schools can reduce costs and emissions, increase academic performance, and make Net Zero a pathway to a more sustainable education system. ■

PRODUCTS IN ACTION

MONITORING & MEASURING

Field devices help Dutch state-of-the-art centre train the engineers of tomorrow

ROVC is the Dutch market leader for further education of technical experts from industry and the maritime sector. Over 15,000 professionals are trained annually in Rotterdam, Helmond and Ede. The training centre in Ede was built in 2021 and is equipped with state-ofthe-art technology from the fields of energy, building management and air conditioning.

It encompasses 7,100m², of which 3,000m² are used just for practical training.

LIGHTING TECHNOLOGY

Lighting helps transform underground car park to vibrant centre for London charity

Working with award-winning EPR Architects and Hollis M and E Consultants Zumtobel and its sister brand Thorn, both lighting brands of the ZUMTOBEL GROUP have provided a complimentary lighting scheme to the Royal Society for Blind Children for its new uplifting centre.

EPR Architects were tasked with designing the charity’s new headquarters – a Life Without Limits Centre. The design transformed an unused basement car park on London’s South Bank, gifted by the Richard Desmond’s Building, into an engaging hub of activity.

The Zumtobel Group were approached by EPR architects to provide a lighting scheme that would bring the centre to life and make the new office spaces look fantastic.

As with all basement spaces, there was an obvious lack of natural daylight. The only source is via the entrance at the top of the stairs. So, the scheme needed to include high lighting levels.

The users of the space, registered blind, and partially sighted children, were the top priority so high lighting quality

LIGHTING TECHNOLOGY

Lighting set to transform energy consumption at London station

LEDVANCE LED lighting solutions have been installed across platforms 1-8 at London’s Kings Cross Station in a move that will significantly reduce maintenance costs and energy consumption while future-proofing the building’s illumination systems.

Over 160 High Bay DALI 155W, 4000K LEDs and reflectors have been installed across eight platforms at Kings Cross, providing energy savings of up to 60 per cent compared to

was essential. Due to the range of sight abilities, low-glare solutions with good uniformity were selected to avoid high contrast between light and dark to help the children’s eyes to adjust.

Central to the new facility is a creative suite for music and sensory experiences. Decorative acoustic 4000K ONDARIA luminaires reduce echoes in the ceiling less space. The round luminaire in creative suite and the boardroom delivers uniform backlighting with a tactile textile cover to absorb sound. For a coordinated aesthetic, mixed-sized ONDARIA luminaires have also been used in the boardroom.

In the reception area, the distinctive CIELUMA tunable light ceiling eases the transition between outside and inside. CIELUMA imitates outdoor daylight, in line with the Double Dynamic Lighting concept; it brings dynamic, motivating light indoors. With its sound-absorbing properties and a host of design options, CIELUMA brings a new quality in connecting light, acoustics, and space. ■ www.zumtobel.com

Unique educational opportunities are offered here, especially for training in the HVAC sector. For example, the building has seven different modern air conditioning systems, including a CHP (combined heat and power) system, an air-to-water heat pump and a VRF (Variable Refrigerant Flow) system. These give trainees the opportunity to see, feel and experience state-of- theart HVAC technology. As a partner of ROVC, Belimo provided field devices and supports the training centre in preparing the specialists of tomorrow to plan and implement efficient HVAC solutions.

Through close cooperation with

market participants, a wide variety of technologies can be demonstrated and trained. Belimo has also provided the training centre with numerous field devices from the HVAC sector. A total of 679 Belimo products, including a wide variety of actuators, valves and sensors, were installed not only in the Living Lab, but also throughout the entire building.

Various field devices are used for heating and cooling the building, including (electronic pressure-independent) characterised control valves, butterfly valve actuators, pressure-dependent as well as pressure-independent quick compact valves, globe valves and Belimo Energy Valves.

A total of 157 devices from the sensor product range were installed in the systems. These include active and passive room sensors, pressure sensors for water and ventilation applications, as well as pipe and duct sensors for measuring temperature and air humidity.

All Belimo components are networked via the Internet of Things (IoT), which means that they can be easily read from the classroom, for example. ■ www.rovc.nl/english/

conventional high bay luminaires.

The Victorian building is considered to be a site of national significance and even small changes to its structure

require planning authority approval. While looking the same as the old lights and providing the same amount of brightness – both essential

requirements – the new LEDVANCE units use much less electricity and last far longer, providing a constant luminous flux across their five-year guaranteed lifespan. Thanks to their DALI-2 certification, they can also be used with any lighting-control system that may be installed in the future at the station, another important consideration.

“The old lamps were failing frequently and changing them required specialist lift equipment which, for health and safety reasons, could only be used at certain times of the night when the concourse was empty,” said David Goddard, head of projects UK at LEDVANCE. “The station needed new luminaires that were far more reliable and energy efficient, but to keep in line with the original appearance of the building they had to look the same as the old lamps.” ■ www.ledvance.com

More paper, but no new policy ideas

Mervyn Pilley reflects on the Government’s mountain of paperwork that was Powering up Britain and its almost complete failure to include energy efficiency in its 1,000 pages

Mervyn Pilley

to work out how the UK can continue to lead in the energy sector.

Another missed opportunity

And so, another year at ESTA ends – my fourth. I must confess to looking forward to a more stable, relative quiet year or two ahead having had enough of pandemics, war and major political upheaval in the last three years. On reflection the 1st April was not necessarily the best day to start a new job.

It has been another very busy month on the energy front since the last column. Positives are emerging but still challenges are still coming through. I attended the K.EY energy show in Italy and had some interesting discussions out there. Nothing I saw made me feel that the UK is not in a strong position to provide energy efficiency solutions to the world, but it was frustrating that we did not manage to have a larger UK presence at the show. I had also hoped for government support for the show, but I was very disappointed to have received zero response from what was the Department for International Trade – now the Department for Business and Trade - to my request for support for our work flying the flag for UK energy efficiency. I know that the days of fully supported trade missions are no more, but I would have hoped that the Government could have taken the trouble to send at least one delegate

Another budget took place and with it another missed opportunity on the energy efficiency front. The Government has focussed on supporting carbon capture and nuclear at the cost of billions of taxpayer pounds. I really do struggle to see why the Government still does not see that well-established energy efficiency solutions already exist and are ready to go in stark contrast to the technologies they are investing in/ supporting. I would stress that I am not against either carbon capture or nuclear, but the capacity build time issues alone do not immediately lend themselves to a 2050 net zero solution. The question of who is going to pay the growing costs of nuclear including the legacy costs of clearing up the eventual waste is still to be resolved.

Application not accepted

We were very encouraged by the announcement of the creation of an energy efficiency taskforce to drive policy action forward, but I was disappointed that despite our request to join the taskforce as the primary UK trade association supporting the commercial and non-domestic space, our application was not accepted. Yet again the government seems happier working with the major corporates rather than tapping into the huge amount of knowledge and experience possessed by our members.

The problem I have is that the

undoubted expertise and knowledge of key trade associations operating in the energy efficiency and installer sectors is not going to be around the main table. While it is important to have the widest possible representation on the taskforce, and we understand that there are going to be a number of sub groups set up, I do not believe that this is going to help speed up what is an urgent process. We will continue to stay connected with the taskforce and play whatever positive role in the process that we can while keeping members fully up to date on what is happening.

Half-hearted response

‘Green Thursday’ came and went resulting in a 1,000-page document as well as 18 subsidiary documents to go with it including the rather halfhearted response to the Skidmore review. Not bedtime reading but in my case weekend reading. And the overwhelming feeling I had after reading everything was, has there

ever been so little new announced in such a large volume of paperwork?

To be fair it was always going to be unlikely that there was going to be a lot of new material in the latest document as it had only been necessary to publish it as a result of the legal challenge to the previously issued net zero strategy. A lack of sufficient detail was cited in the judgement, and I am not entirely sure whether that criterion has still been met. It remains clear that the Government still hasn’t got the ‘first fuel’ message that makes energy efficiency a critical supply and security issue. My belief that rather than adding the words ‘security’ and ‘net zero’ into the new department’s title, the simple reversal of the 2016 change back into a department for energy and climate change STILL remains.

Support for businesses

On the 1st April came the announcement that the Government is launching a business energy efficiency campaign to support businesses following the end of the support mechanism for energy costs at the end of March. This is good news although it remains frustrating that we had not been asked for our input into this scheme when our members have all of the experience needed and the commercial energy efficiency alliance gives us a vehicle to engage with a substantial number of energy consumers. We will of course be proactively feeding our input into the campaign as soon as the website is launched. ■

Executive director of ESTA (Energy Services and Technology Association)

The Government seems happier working with corporates rather a leading trade association

COMPRESSED AIR

Small steps to greater efficiency

Although a compressed air system is a sophisticated piece of engineering design, in its basic form it is a ‘system’. All systems require regular maintenance to help ensure performance is maximised.

Operators should inspect the system regularly for air leaks in the pipework, as even the smallest leak can lead to significant energy loss, alongside an action plan to fix any leaks as they occur. Users should add this to the site’s weekly maintenance regime for improved functionality.

It is also important to check inlet filters and replace routinely to avoid pressure drops, alongside any ancillary equipment including dryers, filters, pipework and air receivers.

Be proactive, not reactive

The final step is to ensure the system is maintained regularly to run at optimum efficiency. It is about being ‘proactive’ rather than ‘reactive’ in regards to a machine breakdown, identifying potential problems before they become major concerns.

Vanda Jones www.bcas.org.uk

air users, ‘the energy savings amount to 32.9 per cent, achievable over a 15-year period.’

closely at ways to reduce electricity consumption from their compressed air production.

Executive director, British Compressed Air Society

In April last year, the British Compressed Air Society (BCAS) launched the 10% Taskforce - a call for UK businesses to take simple steps to cut their compressed air energy usage figure by 10 per cent.

The campaign has an ambitious target to save over 411,000 tonnes of CO, the equivalent of taking 317,000 cars off the road.

When BCAS launched the campaign, no one could have predicted the scale of the rise in the wholesale gas and electricity prices. The campaign’s original calculations of £485.43m being spent in wasted electricity have now risen two or even three-fold.

Energy-intensive process

Generating compressed air can be very energy intensive, representing as much as 30 per cent of a site’s total electricity bill. According to a report entitled ‘Compressed Air Systems in the European Union’ when looking at the most important energy savings techniques available to compressed

Therefore, since the launch, BCAS members have been speaking with customers to encourage them to act and to dispel some of the commonly held beliefs that saving energy will require significant investment in new capital equipment.

In particular, the society is advocating small, incremental steps and demonstrating the significant impact these can have on reducing energy consumption. This can include better housekeeping routines to avoid wasteful practices, fixing air pipework leaks, recovering heat which would otherwise be lost to the atmosphere, or implementing routine system maintenance.

The government’s Energy Bill Relief Scheme for business comes to an end on March 31st. The scheme applied automatic discounts to the price of business energy usage and offered some relief to manufacturers and operators struggling with soaring bills.

But now that the six-month time frame is nearing an end, operators need to look for additional ways to reduce their energy consumption in the long term.

And, with compressors accounting for a considerable amount of the energy used by industry, users will now be looking even more

Consider the maintenance

A good place to start is to consider the ongoing maintenance of the compressed air system. Long running hours and harsh operating conditions can all contribute to higher costs – and greater wear and tear. Maintaining the system correctly will guarantee reliable operation, while also ensuring improved energy performance.

To begin with, operators should use a skilled maintenance professional. BCAS members, for example, are trained to maintain compressors, downstream and ancillary equipment to ensure the system is running as smoothly as possible as part of a planned, proactive or predictive maintenance plan.

Compressors should be positioned in a dry, clean and cool location with good ventilation. This will ensure that the compressor room is as close to ambient temperature as possible.

More energy is required to compress warm air, but some compressor plant rooms will run at temperatures as high as 30°C. When temperatures reach this level, it can result in more frequent compressor downtime, alongside higher energy consumption, leading to a less efficient system.

In addition, BCAS recommends using genuine manufacturer’s spare parts for the compressed air system. These will have been designed for the specific compressor, so will offer the best performance over other alternatives, helping to avoid unintentionally downgrading the system.

Choosing genuine spare parts will also help to save time and money, as lower quality or inferior parts could lead to equipment failure and increased energy consumption.

The benefits of a full and effective maintenance regime are many and varied. The system should function much more efficiently, helping to avoid unplanned outages and downtime.

And of course, by putting a maintenance plan in place, unnecessary energy loss through poorly performing equipment can be avoided, helping combat rising energy costs. Operators can also be confident that the compressed air system is performing to the best of its ability, freeing up more time to prioritise other energy-saving measures. ■

References

1. Compressed Air Systems in the European Union. Energy, Emissions, Savings Potential and Policy Actions. Peter Radgen and Edgar Blaustein

2. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/energybill-relief-scheme-help-for-businessesand-other-non-domestic-customers

Generating compressed air can cost up to 30 per cent of a site's electricity bill

Vanda Jones considers the importance of regular and professional compressed air system maintenance as a means of reducing electricity consumption amid soaring energy prices

Sensitive manufacturing environments will require oil-free compressed air

How to beat oil contamination

Mark Ranger explains the basics of producing oil-free compressed air. He outlines compressed air standards, compressor categories, and the technologies most suitable for specific applications

and disposal, and reduces energy loss from pressure drops.

www.atlascopco.com

In sensitive manufacturing process environments maintaining the highest levels of air purity is a critical consideration, any traces of oil in the air can lead to costly production downtime, product spoilage, and reputational damage.

For example, in the crucial semiconductor manufacturing industry, oil contamination resulting in the spoilage of high-value computer chips being processed would represent a ‘game over’ scenario. Similarly, in the food industry where health and safety concerns come first, not only would food products contaminated with oil residue from compressed air look and taste unacceptable, but they could also have a serious impact on consumer health and wellbeing.

The answer for manufacturers in these sectors is to eliminate contamination risk by installing an oil-free air compressor system. Today’s oil-free compressors not only produce the highest quality Class Zero air, but they also deliver significant savings in lifecycle costs. Oil-free air technology helps to avoid expensive filter replacements, cuts the cost of oil condensate treatment

However, in selecting the most suitable oil-free compressor there is an important distinction between ‘Class 0’ oil-free compressors, which guarantee absolutely no contamination of air, and what is known as ‘technically oil-free’ category where oil as a contaminant is introduced to the compressed air system and needs to be filtered out and removed downstream of the compressor.

Own set of standards

Compressed air has its own set of standards set by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The ISO 8753-1 standard governs the ultimate air purity determined by the number of particles per cubic metre as a function of particle size, with compressors ranked from ISO Class 0-5:

● ISO Class 0 - Oil-Free air: This class is the cleanest and least risky choice; and

● ISO Class 1 - Technically oil-free air: This class allows for a certain level of oil contamination to be introduced into the compressed air stream, which then needs to be filtered and removed.

Oil-free compressors operate without oil in the compression chamber, which eliminates the chance of downstream contamination with oil in the compressed air supply. Rather than using oil for lubrication, sealing and cooling, these types of compressors utilise

other technologies, such as water jackets and advanced, coated compression elements, engineered with microscopic tolerances to deliver oil-free compressed air.

In oil-free screw compressors, which make up the bulk of the market for this type of product, external gears synchronise the position of the counter-rotating screw elements. As the rotors do not come in contact, nor create friction between each other, no oil is required for lubrication within the compression chamber.

Precision engineering of the housing and screw elements minimises air leakage and pressure drops from the pressure side to the inlet. As the internal pressure ratio is limited by differences in air temperature between the inlet and discharge ports, oil-free screw compressors are frequently built with several stages and inter-stage cooling to maximise the pressure reach.

In addition to saving on throughlife costs, using modern oil-free

Atlas Copco has produced this guide to oil-free compressed air

compressor technologies can also deliver significant energy savings. For large-scale, high-energy applications, like glass processing, food production, steel manufacturing, automotive, and petrochemicals, centrifugal compressors offer significant energy efficiency in process air or bulk air applications presenting a flat load, or when providing a baseline flow in mixed installations with VSD screw compressors.

A VSD compressor, which matches output to load, saves on average 35 per cent of energy consumption, while advanced models can save as much as 50 per cent compared to fixed speed units even at full load.

It is also possible to equip oilfree compressors with an energy recovery unit, where up to 94 per cent of the compressor’s input power is converted into usable energy. This can be used to heat water for sanitary purposes, space heating or process applications and is an important consideration for companies looking to become carbon neutral.

Finally, oil-free compressors can also take advantage of advanced central controllers and remote monitoring tools to further boost energy efficiency. A master controller will optimise the operation of a system with multiple compressors.

Oil-free compressed air systems require fewer items of ancillary equipment and less maintenance compared to a technically oil-free system meeting the same ISO air quality standard. The gulf between the two solutions is further widened when looking at specific applications such as those in the food industry.

Maintenance cost savings start with the oil itself. It is important to rectify a common misconception, namely that oil-free compressors are all oil-less. Most oil-free compressors still require oil for lubrication of the drive train gear, but smart sealing technology prevents this lubricating oil entering the compressed air stream.

An oil-free system typically includes aftercoolers, a dryer, and dust filters before being distributed for use. In the technically oil-free solution, this equipment is also fitted downstream, but with the addition of oil separators, coalescing filters, and carbon capture towers − all of which adds to the level of maintenance required, increases the pressure drop and, with many more failure points, the risk of malfunction.

In a typical compressor installation, operating for ten years, the cost of increased maintenance involved over this time could easily dwarf the higher initial capital investment for an oil-free compressor installation. ■

Business line manager, Oil-free Air, Atlas Copco UK & Ireland

Mark Ranger

HEAT PUMPS

Wi-Fi controller allows operation from one device

Following the launch of its range of high efficiency heat pumps, MODUTHERM has introduced the NordFlex+ Wi-Fi controller. Designed specifically for use with the company’s range of AW Monobloc heat pumps, the NordFlex+ is BMS compatible and allows up to 16 units to be operated from one device. Controllability is further enhanced by its remote monitoring capabilities, with the operating parameters also easily accessed via a mobile app.

The NordFlex+ uses cascade logic to ensure the heat pump system always achieves the highest COP. The controller manages the compressor speed of all the heat pumps in a system to maximise efficiency in line with heating demand. This ensures the running time (and fuel consumption) of the heat pumps is evened out for optimum system efficiency and reliability.

The controller is capable of simultaneously handling up to four mixed heating/cooling circuits with different

PHOTOVOLTAICS

PV system can link to heat pump and battery

VIESSMANN has introduced the Vitovolt 300 solar PV system to the UK to make it easier for British home owners to cover as much of their electricity needs as possible through renewable energy.

The Vitovolt 300 package is quick to install thanks to its plug-in solutions for electrical connections and fully wired matching components. Power storage can easily be added via a Viessmannoffered BYD Battery Box Premium with all the power flows of the PV and battery system able to be monitored through the company’s own energy management system.

The PV package is also ideal for use with a Viessmann heat pump, enabling householders to generate electricity for use both as energy and heat, reducing running costs of the heat pump as well as energy costs for the entire home.

All elements are seamlessly controlled via the Viessmann One Base control platform, which, via the company's ViCare app, allows customers to view and optimise the use of their selfgenerated energy, whether it be for domestic electricity consumption, storage, heat or mobility.

“Recent increases in energy prices mean the financial case for solar is

temperature zones. This is achieved by prioritising the heating circuit with the highest heating demand to run the system, while adjusting down to the temperature for the rest of the circuits simply by controlling the mixing valves. All the necessary settings can be easily adjusted on the touchscreen display, enabling the creation of simultaneous cooling, heating and DHW production. ■ www.modutherm.co.uk

MONITORING

Clip temperature sensors help in fight against legionella

As legionella continues to pose a real but avoidable risk to public health, ATC SEMITEC is stocking a range of IP67 rated pipe clip temperature

sensors.

These can be simply and quickly attached to the water pipe, without the need for drilling holes or making special couplings for conventional probe sensors. As part of a water monitoring system, our sensor ensures that water temperatures are maintained at lower than 20°C or higher than 45°C.

These neat surface temperature sensors use highly accurate NTC thermistors and are ideal for use within anti-legionnaires systems, domestic and industrial water systems, hot water showers, gas boilers, heating and air conditioning systems

The BTS3 sensor from ATC Semitec enables you to accurately and quickly sense water temperature from the outside of a metal pipe. The sensor

simply fastens over the pipe and is held in place by a strong stainless-steel clip. This keeps the NTC thermistor sensor firmly against the pipe surface and thus ensures a fast-thermal response and accurate temperature monitoring.

stronger than ever before,” commented Viessmann UK director of sales, Chris Johnson. “Plus, we’re using electricity more and more for heating and charging vehicles. The Vitovolt 300 offers a great foundation for UK homes to transition to renewable technology for heating and motoring. It’s a very attractive option for homeowners looking to reduce their

reliance on energy companies while also increasing the sustainability and value of their property.”

The Vitovolt 300 product range includes monocrystalline modules with an output of up to 440Wp guaranteed for up to 25 years. All modules are supplied with positive output tolerances, meaning that output will never be lower

In addition, for ease of maintenance, they can be simply unclipped and quickly replaced with another, without the need to drain the water system. ■ www.atcsemitec.co.uk

than specified but could be up to +5 Wp. Module efficiency is up to 21.3per cent.

A typical Vitovolt 300 package provides a photovoltaic output of 4kWp, producing around 3800kWh per yearwell over the typical annual UK fourperson household consumption level of 2,900kWh, according to Ofgem. ■ www.viessmann.co.uk

Get ready for the arrival of 24/7 clean energy

Policy changes are on the way which will affect how businesses report their energy sourcing. Jaron Reddy explains why they need to act now

Many businesses in the UK are working hard towards their net zero goals. If your business is one of them, the chances are that you have taken steps to secure a green electricity tariff or perhaps a renewable CPPA, which means you can claim 100 per cent renewable electricity in your climate reporting.

Unfortunately, things aren’t quite that simple. The reality is that a tariff sold to you as “100 per cent renewable” is likely to be nothing of the sort. The current flawed system means that energy suppliers can buy energy from fossil fuel sources, then “greenify” it through the purchase of certificates known as REGOs. It is then perfectly legal for them to market their energy with a “renewable” or “green” label. A tariff sold as 100 per cent renewable is likely to be nothing of the sort

Another energy source

It is a similar story with corporate power purchase agreements (CPPAs). Yes, your payments really do support renewable generators. But renewable energy sources are by their very nature intermittent. When the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing, you need another energy source to keep the lights on. Most CPPA arrangements involve the trading of REGO certificates to label your agreement “100 per cent renewable”, even though you will certainly be using dirty energy at various points. There is a growing awareness that this system isn’t serving anyone and certainly isn’t getting us to net zero. Allowing suppliers to buy REGOs as a cheap alternative to actually investing in renewables won’t result in any new green generation capacity. Policy-makers are acting on this realisation, as shown in recent and

upcoming legislative changes. The EU has just updated the rules for hydrogen producers, making it clear that electrolysers will have to be connected to new renewable electricity production in order to label the hydrogen produced as green. Here in the UK, the government has just launched a consultation on its own system of labelling low carbon hydrogen.

Shake-up of labelling

Crucially for UK businesses, the government here has been working on a shake-up of green tariff labelling for some time. The days of REGOs may well be numbered. Compliance schemes such as the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting regulations may also change to reflect the need for more transparency. For businesses working to decarbonise, this may actually feel like a step backwards. A system

where suppliers can’t greenwash their offering with REGOs is a system where business consumers can no longer claim 100 per cent renewable sourcing or zero Scope 2 emissions. The new policy environment will require much more accurate, granular data on exactly how your consumption aligns with your renewable sources of energy. This can come as a shock, as 100 per cent drops to 60 per cent, 50 per cent or even less.

But the truth is that the existing system is failing carbon-conscious UK businesses. The availability and acceptability of greenwashed energy sources is holding business back from making real progress.

Businesses ambitious about their climate goals now have a chance to get ahead of the changes. This is why ENTRNCE developed the Matcher, a powerful data platform which provides half-hourly updates on where your energy is really coming from. At any given point in the day you can see how much is coming from your CPPA or onsite renewables and how much from the grid. You will also see what proportion of that grid energy is truly green.

Handle on true emissions

Smart businesses will see the opportunity to get a handle on their true emissions, which is the only way to make genuine progress towards decarbonisation. Your Matcher results may be very different from the numbers you have been working with in the past. But you can’t navigate anywhere without knowing where you’re really starting from. Once you have the data from the Matcher, you can take action. To start with, this might mean adjusting consumption patterns to align better with renewable generation.

The Matcher can also help with bigger changes. The Matcher’s simulation functionality allows you to model how various other solutions would work for your business, whether that’s investment in battery storage or changing the generation mix of your CPPA. This information gives you a solid foundation for your energy strategy.

The coming changes may seem daunting, but they are actually long overdue. Businesses who embrace data-driven transparency now will have a competitive advantage in the near future. ■

Jaron Reddy Manager UK & Ireland at ENTRNCE

A tariff sold as 100 per cent renewable is likely to be nothing of the sort