The help from the Carbon Trust has been essential in providing professional support for our energy efficiency initiatives. We are looking forward to repeating our success at the Waterfront Hall in other Council properties.
David Bell, the Council’s Energy Officer
The business case
The Waterfront Hall embraced the recommendations and its Operations Team, in conjunction with the Council’s Energy Officer, formed the "Energy Action Group" and created an Energy Action Plan.
Meeting quarterly the group implemented many of the recommendations including a staff awareness programme with respect to switching off unnecessary lights and closing thermal barriers. At the same time the energy manager was empowered to commence fine tuning investigations on plant usage.
In the spring of 2004 the first initiatives to improve energy efficiency at the Waterfront Hall started to generate significant savings. These initiatives included monitoring and control of overnight loads and fine tuning of plant operation periods together with the installation of variable speed drives on the main airhandling Low Temperature Hot Water (LTHW) pumps.
Already the business benefits include:
- Lower CO2 emissions
- Reduced fuel costs
- Significant cost savings
The technology - costs and benefits
The variable speed drives (VSD) were installed without any major disruption and the original rated power consumption has been significantly reduced.
Having successfully implemented the first phases of the project they have already made significant financial and energy savings of £29,600 through improved energy efficiency on the use of electricity.
The costs for invoking Best Practice energy management are minimal, involving the empowerment of individuals and the purchase of test equipment at £2,880. The supply and installation of the variable speed drives on the main air handling LTHW pumps totalled £5,500.
The annual savings attributed to the VSD installation may be up to £12,500 and the simple payback on this measure is therefore less than six months. The other savings through the implementation of Best Practice energy management have already invoked further annual savings of £17,100 – a payback of just two months.
In addition Belfast City Council has established a £200,000 Energy Fund and Energy Task Force to tackle energy efficiency projects across all Council sites.
Find out more about expert advice available for local authorities to help reduce energy costs and cut emissions.