Energy and Water Costs Impact the Bottom Line – Boardrooms Take Note!
Overview:
With limited resources any strategic review of water and energy saving should focus on the 80:20 rule; where you can get the best return 80% for 20% of the cost, alternatively this is the “grab the low hanging fruit” first option. Many of these initiatives are already being or have been implemented by Councils in Australia and around the world. In the past the focus has been on water saving, but in terms of “bang for your buck” the emphasis should be on energy saving by eliminating unnecessary waste. This is not as difficult as it seems with the current technology now readily available.
Step One: Who is Driving What?
A senior management person does needs to drive the change, ensuring tangible savings in a short time frame. Too often the Parks Department want to do one thing, Property Services another, Engineering another and no one from Accounts is demonstrating how much too much water or energy is costing, or where savings should be made. A senior manager can ensure that all Departments implement programs rather than just talk about them.
Step Two: Follows the old adage, if you cannot measure it, you cannot monitor it or improve it. The simplest method is to install water and energy smart meters that deliver their measurements to a PC.
Not only are they accurate, but can be easily programmed to raise alarms with any abnormal usage; ideal for leak detection, pipe breaks, power outages and equipment failure. Smart metering provides simple risk minimisation for water damage or fires caused by equipment malfunction. These messages and reports are delivered direct to your PC, or alerts to the plumber or electrician to fix it in real time.
Presenting the data in meetings is more relevant and easier to follow by everyone. This removes much of the uncertainty and ensures the data is “in the face” of all concerned. For example, Parks Department should have the information on their water usage and individual building sites their energy usage, not just in total, but time of use. This information assists changes in behaviour. If people can graphically see their usage they are more willing to accept the need to change.
Energy Saving -The Simple Steps
The cost of power will continue to increase and ensure any investment in energy saving will improve its financial yield curve over the life of the equipment.
Saving on power of >20% on your current power consumption should be a minimum target with identification of greater savings more than possible. How you may ask? Here is a quick summary of the key technologies available, right now.
Energy smart metering as well as providing accurate data on power consumption and CO2 emissions will indicate the opportunity to power-shift, switching on and off equipment at different times of the day to take advantage of lower kWh charges
Power-factor correction can typically save 20% on the power consumption of a site, improving the quality of the power to a site, matching load to input. These units are simple to install, and start delivering savings immediately on power consumption. They also deliver maintenance savings due to less wear & tear on equipment, particularly pumps and compressors.
Lighting, there has been much talk and effort to replace incandescent globes with compact fluorescents, but at what cost? High mercury content ensures these globes will cause major problems with disposal and land fill in the future. Already several Councils in America ban them from entering their waste disposal stream, and IKEA USA will now voluntary take them back. Watch for more active protests in the future. Councils need to prepare plans on how they will manage this problem. If not compact fluorescents, then what?
LED Security lighting for buildings, offers superior perceived light and long 55,000 hour life or 6.2 years of 24/7 hours. Longer life quickly translates into lower maintenance costs. The introduction of LED traffic lights typically saves 80% of maintenance costs.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 22% of electricity used in the U.S. powers lighting, and by using LED lighting over the next 20 years will achieve financial savings that could exceed USD$115 billion, eliminate 258 million metric tons of carbon emissions and avoid building 133 new power plants.
These savings are dramatic and already achievable with existing LED technology. LED City, a USA based organisation, promotes the use of LED with Councils, highlights several have already moved to lighting their cities with LED lighting e.g. Austin, Texas.
Fluorescent tubes are a source of wasted electricity; every time they are switched on they use more power than they need. There are alternatives e.g. T5’s, but these are expensive to supply and fit, disrupt the work environment during installation and typically only save 13% of energy. A better and more cost effective alternative is to simply install Powersavers to reduce existing power consumption by up to 30%+ in most cases. The added benefit is longer lamp life as the tubes run cooler, resulting in less maintenance and replacement costs.
Water Saving Made Simple
Last but not least is water saving. In some instances the emphasis on water has been over-done. Despite this there are real advantages to save water and costs in three key areas: air-conditioning, men’s urinals and irrigation. Effective data collection via smart metering for air-conditioning units and irrigation where large volumes of water can easily go unaccounted is essential. Plus the considerable benefit of immediate leak detection for sensitive areas like computer rooms, and libraries and as a vandal alert for remote buildings where often taps are deliberately left on. Once alerted, real damage to a building can be averted.
Men’s urinals are known for their maintenance issues and complaints. Solving this problem calls for varying levels of investment using waterless urinals and water management systems. However, remember that these systems still need water even the waterless ones to ensure uric sludge and acid are safely taken away and do not corrode pipe-work. Only the go anywhere compost toilet is truly waterless.
Park irrigation is almost a subject in its own right, but it is surprising how little control is exercised over this area. It is simply left to the Parks Department to manage, yet frequently they do not know their usage, do not see the bills and water when they can. Smart metering will go a long way to helping them understand their usage profile and make adjustments to the amount watered, when watered and if leaks occur.
Conclusion
To achieve a sustainable program in water and energy saving requires clear management direction and leadership to force the changes in a timely manner. Energy initiatives can be easily retro fitted to existing systems and produce cost savings immediately; with ROI measured in months in the case of lighting and 2-3 years in other instances. It is all achievable using current technology available in Australia. Water saving is best focused on risk management for leak detection for both buildings and park irrigation. Changing over men’s urinals to effective water management systems is likely to best save maintenance rather than water.
In a nut-shell effective monitoring will ensure progress is evaluated and transparent, speeding up any necessary changes of behaviour. Then the simple implementation of programs can commence with financial and water & energy savings assured, including any CO2 emission targets.
Article published in "In Finsia" and prepared by Eco Living Centre 2008
Click on News for more views about Sustainability
