RAF Kinloss - case study 

Duncan Cockburn, RAF Utility Manager

Project Details

Although an initial spend of £180,000 was required to fund many of the changes, the Carbon Trust expects RAF Kinloss to achieve 10 per cent energy savings at its site. This will equate to carbon savings of 1,857 tonnes and cost savings of £245,000. Furthermore, the RAF and wider MOD will be able to replicate this work on other sites, which will reduce the MOD’s carbon emissions and contribute to further savings of hundred of thousands of pounds.

The MOD is one of the country’s largest landowners with an estate of 240,000 hectares in the UK, two thirds of which is rural, and used for ranges and training. The UK estate includes more than 45,000 buildings spread over some 4,000 separate sites together with around 50,000 houses. The Department’s annual carbon emissions from energy used in buildings and facilities on the defence estate are in the order of 0.45 million tonnes. This is equivalent to two-thirds of the carbon emitted by Government and 0.3 per cent of UK total carbon emissions.

Reducing energy bills

In 2005, the Carbon Trust worked with the MOD Defence Estates (DE), the RAF and AMEC Turner, the MOD’s Regional Prime Contractor for Scotland, on a project that will save RAF Kinloss £245,000 per annum in energy bills.

DE and RAF set criteria led to the selection of RAF Kinloss being used as a test site to identify best practice which would facilitate further energy savings on other major energy using sites across the MOD estate and to develop the MOD SD Strategy for Non Operational Energy. As an EU ETS participant, the RAF was under pressure to reduce its carbon emissions and keep them within its strict allocation levels in order to avoid significant financial penalties – as of 1 January 2005, the penalty was 40 euros per tonne of CO2 emitted beyond its allocation. Additionally, with continuously rising energy prices leading to larger energy bills, it was realised that significant carbon and cost savings could be made by simply reviewing energy management. As a result, the Carbon Trust was engaged, through a Partnership Agreement with the MOD, to help them improve their carbon management.

Measures to reduce energy consumption

RAF Kinloss employs 3,000 staff to maintain and operate NIMROD, the world’s most capable maritime reconnaissance aircraft. The estate consists of a number of buildings types, including maintenance hangars, workshops offices and living accommodation. However, owing to the fact that neither energy controls nor meters were operating correctly, utility bills were costing the site £1.8million per annum.

Consequently, in order to identify the problem areas and propose a solution, the Carbon Trust, DE and the RAF, set out the following objectives:

• Reduce energy consumption though the identification of spend to save measures
  
  The Carbon Trust undertook an audit and survey of the top 10 energy consuming buildings and determined that by installing Building Maintenance Service outstations into the buildings and replacing and linking new controls and metering with the networked Chief Environmental Safety Officer (RAF) RAF Utility Management Bureau Service (UMBS), significant savings could be made.
• Support and empower the Energy Manager to put in place appropriate energy management processes to undertake benchmarking, target setting and energy auditing
  
  It was crucial to ensure that the sub meters used on site were set up correctly and reporting the correct readings. Once this was achieved, correct monitoring and target setting could be put in place. Also, it was suggested that a procedure should be developed to ensure good housekeeping in each building.
• Develop the Bureau Service at St Athan
  
  This was a twofold strategy consisting of imparting knowledge and skills in order to help site energy managers do their job properly and developing and analysing reporting tools and procedures that would help the local energy managers at RAF sites around the country implement reports that the UMBS would send out.

Wider carbon savings

From August to December 2005, the Carbon Trust worked with RAF Kinloss to carry out these recommended projects. Although an initial spend of £180,000 was required to fund many of the changes, the Carbon Trust expects RAF Kinloss to achieve 10 per cent energy savings at its site. This will equate to carbon savings of 1,857 tonnes and cost savings of £245,000. Furthermore, the RAF and wider MOD will be able to replicate this work on other sites, which will reduce the MOD’s carbon emissions and contribute to further savings of hundred of thousands of pounds.

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