BG Controls helps Cancer Research UK cut utility costs
About £8000 has been trimmed of utility bills at the Cambridge Research Institute of Cancer Research UK in just two months following the installation of an EFT Control System to monitor consumption. It was installed by BG Controls in the £50 million custom-built Li Ka Shing Centre, which houses 21 cancer-research groups and associated core facilities. The payback is expected to be about a year.
BG Controls has installed 52 meter output points to monitor equipment consuming over 60 A. The system has sophisticated data-collection technology and records and analyses the use of gas, electricity and water across the entire site.
The collated results are displayed in 15-minute intervals on a PC front-end in the facilities manager’s office. The results can also be viewed via the institute’s intranet site.
The system will enable Cancer Research UK to compare the performance of this site with its London facility, built in the 1960s. They have similar functions.
Savings have been achieved by changing the temperature of chilled water, switching off lights at the end of each day and staff working out of hours turning off equipment when it is not in use.
Time zones have been set up and an optimisation strategy introduced for various items of plant — including chillers, supply and extract fans, main air-handling units and fan-coil units.
Martin Frohock, building-services and facilities manager at the Cambridge site, said, ‘We’ve only had the system in for a short period of time, but we’ve already seen various reduction in our budgeted utilities bill versus the EDT estimated cost for utilities. With the projected savings, this would lead to a payback period of approximately one year for the whole project, and we hope to continue making savings in the future. This allows us to focus more resources on important research.’
BG Controls has also been awarded the contract for service and maintenance for the CRI for the next three years.
