From energy saving to carbon reduction

As an energy-service company, Dalkia has been managing energy and saving money for clients for many years. The current concern with climate change and carbon emissions simply puts a new perspective on its work.Dalkia, in its various guises, has been involved in energy management for over 70 years. It was in 1935 at Villiers St Denis Hospital in France that Dalkia started work on a contract to manage heating plant, becoming the first company of its kind dedicated to energy optimisation. Dalkia is still managing energy at this hospital — as well as for 88 000 other facilities in 42 countries, including the UK. Carbon emissions In recent years, managing energy effectively has become a key method of reducing carbon emissions and addressing the issue of climate change — leading Dalkia to develop and introduce a sustainable energy services solution. Called CarbonCare, the concept is designed to help organisations cut carbon emissions and also reduce energy costs for sustainable business development. It embraces a complete and integrated range of energy services and can be applied to any organisation in any sector. CarbonCare services are grouped into three main areas. • Identifying the carbon footprint of sites and buildings. • Reducing energy consumption. • Utilising sources of energy such as CHP and biomass. Achieving these objectives also includes services such as environmental auditing, operational energy efficiency and strategies covering the application of modern control technology, the installation and management of energy plant and carbon trading within the EU Emission Trading Scheme. To reduce energy consumption and, hence, carbon footprint and emissions, the capabilities of CarbonCare embrace building-management systems, hot water, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, energy procurement, combined heat and power, refrigeration, standby generation, sustainable energy, compressed air, demand-side management and bill validation. Mike Sewell is energy-services director of Dalkia and explains, ‘There is a common perception among organisations that implementing sustainable carbon-saving measures is a costly process, leading to many to delay on taking action. However, our proven expertise and proactive involvement with customers’ operations means that we can recommend, implement and carry out a range of measures which will generate sustainable guaranteed savings.’ Guaranteed savings Mike Sewell believes that Dalkia is the first energy-services company to provide a wide-ranging and fully integrated approach to carbon management and explains that the CarbonCare service enables companies to work towards carbon neutrality by implementing a concept-to-completion approach to energy management. Since it is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve total carbon neutrality within a site, emissions trading is part of CarbonCare. By facilitating the participation of organisations in the UK Emissions Trading Scheme and, now, the European Emissions Trading Scheme, Dalkia has helped them reduce their energy consumption across a portfolio of buildings. Crucial to the success of efforts to reduce carbon emissions is monitoring plant and producing management reports to demonstrate the performance of each building — tasks that are carried remotely from Dalkia’s customer-service centres. The are many examples of how Dalkia has, for many years, helped customers address their energy consumption and provide the finance for energy-saving measures to be implemented. In the public sector, for example, most schools are faced with the challenge of managing and controlling their own finances. When priority is placed in teaching and materials, it is easy for energy costs to spiral upwards — especially is there is no dedicated energy-management resource in place. In partnership with EDF Energy, Dalkia took a new approach to energy management for schools in North Somerset, through an integrated planned and reactive service and maintenance contract. This arrangement allows schools to concentrate resources where they are needed, as the cost savings made are used to provide more efficient plant and systems that generate even more energy savings. — avoiding using the education budget. That approach required the schools to adopt a more strategic long-term approach to their energy management, but it continues to deliver effective risk management of energy costs. The CarbonCare offering can also be tailored for the retail sector. One example is when Tesco was looking to ways to reduce its energy consumption and carbon output. Dalkia saw a solution within the distribution centres, which represent 10% of Tesco’s overall energy consumption — and has now delivered improvements in lighting, HVAC equipment and refrigeration systems for 25 distribution centres. The cost saving achieved is £1.1 million a year. Leisure poses special challenges for the use of energy and how best to ensure savings in carbon are planned for and delivered. At Afan Lido in Port Talbot, in south Wales, Dalkia has designed and installed energy-efficiency combined-heat-and-power and ancillary plant in collaboration with the centre’s owner, Neath & Port Talbot County Borough Council. Now fully operational, the CHP scheme reduces carbon-dioxide emissions by 300 t a year and achieves energy cost savings of £45 000 a year. The applications of the CarbonCare concept can be applied on an even larger scale. The award-winning Barkantine district-heating scheme was the first of its kind in London and provides green electricity and heat to over 700 homes in the Tower Hamlets region of London. Working with Dalkia and via a 25-year PFI funding, this sustainable district-heating scheme was developed to replace existing plant. Dalkia now operates and maintains the CHP plant for Barkantine Heat & Power Company. The scheme saves around 250 t of carbon emissions a year, making the CHP plant 30% more efficient than individual central-heating systems and the National Grid. The cost to the average household for heating and hot water is around £1.50 a week. Emissions trading An example of how reducing carbon emissions can generate income is provided by Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Trust, for which Dalkia has secured a refund of over £130 000 through successful emissions trading on the UK Emissions Trading Scheme. The cash is due to carbon savings achieved by CHP plant at the Freeman Hospital and Royal Victoria Infirmary sites and is in addition to cost savings of around £700 000 achieved through the use of modern co-generation systems. The trust first adopted CHP in 1997 when Dalkia designed and installed a PFI-funded CHP plant to serve the Freeman Hospital site, achieving carbon savings of around 14 000 t a year. In 2001, another PFI-backed CHP scheme was installed at the Royal Victoria Infirmary and delivers carbon savings of 10 880 t a year. Dalkia was the only energy-services company participating in the UK ETS from the start and managed greenhouse-gas targets on behalf of 130 customers across a number of sectors. Participants in the scheme elected to meet emissions targets or buy emissions allowances, which were traded as a way of meeting their targets. By optimising energy plant and managing and trading the resultant savings, Dalkia has enabled the trust, and other customers, to beat their targets and sell the surplus emission allowances. Robin Smith, estates director at the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, says, ‘This extra revenue highlights our successful long-term commitment to the adoption of CHP systems for our hospitals sites and represents a further benefit we have gained through working with Dalkia.’ Factories can reduce costs, too, as demonstrated by the site of Heinz at Kitt Green — Europe’s largest food-canning plant, which processes 1.34 billion cans of food a year. With the aim of improving environmental performance, reducing fuel consumption and sustaining the steam supply, Heinz decided that a new energy centre would be the best solution to guarantee the supply of steam required. An energy-management agreement was signed for Dalkia to design, build and subsequently operate and maintain a new facility that could deliver up to 140 t of steam per hour. The energy centre has a gross efficiency of 91% and uses over £3.5 million-worth of gas a year. The new technology embodied in the energy centre yields cost savings of around £1 million a year. What the experience of Dalkia shows is that the engineering principles required to manage energy and reduce energy consumption and costs are equally applicable to reducing carbon emissions. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, even if rebranding puts a fresh perspective on what is being achieved.

Related links:

• www.dalkia.co.uk

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