Please apply to careers@greenrunning.com and put the subject title as Marketing

Please apply to careers@greenrunning.com and put the subject title as Marketing

Please apply to careers@greenrunning.com and put the subject title as Operations

- Bill Wilson, Group Operations Director, Barchester

- Gardline Staff

BACKGROUND

Gardline was established in 1969 to provide marine support to a flourishing offshore oil and gas industry in the North Sea. Today, Gardline is a 1,000-strong, £140m turnover group of businesses, headquartered still in Great Yarmouth but whose activities around the world now include satellite communications, marine sciences, security, ship building, dry dock engineering, geographical information systems and digital mapping.

Engineering is at the core of Gardline’s business

The Great Yarmouth HQ has grown over the years to support global business growth and now employs several hundred staff – with over £1m annually spent on electricity.

ENERGY MANAGEMENT

Controlling costs is a challenge, as for all ambitious businesses, and with many of the businesses being highly energy-intensive energy costs have a high profile. The cost focus is strong in the Head Office as well as in the field, and Gardline have been actively searching for ways to manage energy spend.

GREEN RUNNING

Having decided to look seriously at energy costs, Gardline selected Green Running as its supplier and consulting partner based on an evaluation of its products and the consulting support offered. One Green Running consultant was engaged to guide and support a project led by an internal Gardline project manager.

Green Running’s e Analyser product provides a simple and highly effective way of monitoring and controlling energy usage. Its finely calibrated monitoring capability, with data tracked at sub- sub-second intervals, allows Energy Managers to spot when exactly devices are switched on and off, making sense of an otherwise extensive stream of data.

SAVING COST AT HEAD OFFICE

Alwyn Davies, the Gardline project manager, explains:

“Looking closely at the energy we’re actually consuming makes savings so easy. For example, after just a couple of days’ monitoring we were surprised to see something big happen every evening at 7pm. Taking a closer look, we found that this was actually due to a faulty machine, meaning that large amounts of energy were being wasted without our knowledge.”

After a few months cost savings are racking up, and Gardline’s HO is aiming for savings of 20% by the end of 2011.

EVALUATING NEW ELECTRICAL PRODUCT

Another Gardline company makes electrical equipment. There, besides monitoring overall energy usage, Gardline staff used e Analyser to test the energy footprint of a major new product – a heat pump.    “The heat pump was developed with an innovative design, and it was very successful at 123, but we weren’t sure if it would be efficient as a product. Using e Analyser allowed us very easily to test the product in a large number of real-life situations”.

BACKGROUND

Barchester is one of the UK’s most respected care home companies, providing award winning care and services to residents across the country.  Since the business was founded in 1993, it has grown rapidly and now cares for over 10,000 people living at one of over 200 homes.  Residents’ needs range widely – while many are in good health, others require nursing or convalescence and some are in full-time care – but all must be cared for with warmth and sensitivity.

Barchester’s 200 properties are broad ranging also: extending from new, purpose-built buildings to large, draughty properties.  Every one, however, must be well heated and lit, and must support a full range of care services.  Providing these involves considerable energy usage and cost, and in 2010 over £xm was spent on electricity.

Badgeworth Court Care Centre, near Cheltenham

ENERGY MANAGEMENT

Rising energy costs – both increasing usage and ever higher prices – are more and more a concern, and late in 2010 Bill Wilson, Group Operations Director, determined that action was needed to get these under control.  Notwithstanding, any changes or economies would need to be made carefully and sensitively, given residents’ needs and, for some, vulnerabilities.  As a starting point therefore, Bill needed to build a much greater understanding of what exactly was driving his energy costs, and where it was safe to reduce them.

GREEN RUNNING

Barchester decided to call on expert help to understand its energy cost and Green Running was selected as a supplier and consulting partner.  The company was chosen for its leading energy monitoring products and also its proven, systematic approach to reducing energy costs.  One Green Running consultant was engaged for a few days to guide and support the Barchester project team.

Green Running’s e Analyser product provides a simple and highly effective way of monitoring and controlling energy usage.  Its finely calibrated monitoring capability, with data tracked at sub- sub-second intervals, allows Energy Managers to spot when exactly devices are switched on and off, making sense of an otherwise extensive stream of data.

PILOT PROJECT

Peter Davies, Green Running’s project leader, explains:

“We use this methodology in all of our assignments, and it’s now well proven.  First, we track each major circuit over an extended period, normally a week.  Then we look systematically at the data, to see what’s driving costs   We find clients are regularly surprised at how much energy is being used without anyone realising – and how easy it is to start saving.”

RESULTS SO FAR

Three months into the pilot, Barchester are starting to see tangible results from the effort.  Highlights to date include:

• One third of total consumption is driven by Baseline activity – energy being used round the clock, including when staff and residents are asleep.  Unlike many organisations Barchester can’t cut this spend to zero, but achievable savings include managing heater temperatures, replacing  highly inefficient static water boilers for “always available” tea/coffee machines and switching off televisions and other devices on standby
• Kitchens are often heavy energy users: ovens are big consumers, and are often routinely switched on many hours before they are needed.  Barchester kitchens are no exception – and a source of significant savings
• Often, significant savings can be made by reviewing which devices are run from each of the three “phases” found in industrial buildings.  At Barchester this had actually been managed very well – and the “phase angle” was found to be 97% efficient

In total, based on the pilot results, Barchester are now aiming for over £1m annual savings across the Group – a remarkable return on an investment of less than £20,000.

BARCHESTER VIEWS

“The pilot results look really promising.  I can see how with a bit of application we can easily save over £1m p.a.” Bill Wilson, Group Operations Director

“e Analyser is a very neat product – easy to set up and use, powerful results, good reporting”

Price: £49.99