Nationwide Utilities turned to IMServ, one of the UK’s largest independent energy management providers which offers a range of monitoring, visualisation and control services. For the airport, the company was commissioned to install meters and loggers, collect and aggregate consumption data, and provide profiles to support analysis and review in order to reduce energy consumption.
Nationwide Utilities
Nationwide Utilities is one of the UK’s leading independent business energy consultants. The company provides a comprehensive range of services to help businesses manage their energy consumption, secure contracts for electricity and gas while improving efficiencies to save money. The company has a growing number of clients located throughout the UK, including BrightHouse Stores, Hotusa Hotels, London Central Mosque and YMCA England. It also acts for a number of data centre operators for both brokerage and supply management for higher-volume sites.
For several years, Nationwide Utilities has been working with TAG Farnborough Airport, one of the most modern, high quality and efficient business aviation airports worldwide. The airport is committed to increasing the efficiency with which it uses energy within its operations and was keen to put in place consumption management and monitoring measures to help lower costs and reduce the associated carbon dioxide emissions.
TAG FarnboroughAirport also needed to ensure that it would be successful in achieving the Airport Carbon Accreditation. The accreditation was launched by Airports Council International (ACI) Europe in June 2009, and assesses and recognises efforts to manage and reduce carbon emission from airport operations. The airport was awarded the “Optimisation” level certificate for 2013/2014, the third of the four levels of accreditation which include “Mapping”, “Reduction”, “Optimisation” and “Neutrality”.
George Murdoch at Nationwide Utilities explains: “The airport is close to Heathrow and within a heavily populated area. In order to gain planning permission to meet the forecasted increases in demand it had to pass stringent requirements which included monitoring and reducing its carbon footprint. Accurate data collection and consumption management was essential to achieving this goal and we were asked to assist with this process. Securing volume reductions of 10-20% was just a starter-for-ten in the overall scheme of things, alongside buying at competive prices, as the long term approach is to achieve more significant efficiency increases to deliver the same output for less.”
Finding the right partner
Nationwide Utilities turned to IMServ, one of the UK’s largest independent energy management providers which offers a range of monitoring, visualisation and control services. For the airport, the company was commissioned to install meters and loggers, collect and aggregate consumption data, and provide profiles to support analysis and review in order to reduce energy consumption.
George said: “We chose IMServ as the company is partner-friendly and a reputable supplier within the industry. Despite being a big company it offers competitive prices and a responsive quality service.”
Metering insight
TAG Farnborough Airport now receives accurate on-line energy consumption information, this includes non-half hourly and half hourly automated meter reading (NHH and HH AMR). IMServ’s Energy DataVision (EDV) has fulfilled the demand for an end-to-end energy management tool, providing a range of services from data collection and storage, through to reporting and analysis. The airport is also now able to centrally control temperature, light levels and humidity ensuring a comfortable environment for staff and customers alike.
George explains: “IMServ’s meters provide data on real-time consumption and usage on an instantaneous basis, not just periodically. This can help identify spikes in consumption that may be of short duration arising from aberrations in operational programming of equipment or other issues that would not necessarily appear in conventional supplier data, such as that for half-hour reporting. An example is that IMServ’s Energy DataVision identified a 20 minute spike in electricity consumption for a particular electricity meter that was occurring at night when the facility was unmanned. Further investigation established that a programming issue was triggering air management equipment that did not need to be operating at that time. As there was no other indication that this was happening, the EDV reporting allowed a problem to be identified that would not otherwise have been known about.”
Further to this, the installation of AMR has improved TAG Farnborough Airport’s ability to forecast energy demands. Sub-metering arrangements with suppliers to tenants at their facilities, removes the need to apportion supplier invoices as this can be set up under a consumption management programme.
Long term goals
TAG Farnborough Airport is committed to ensuring on-going improvements are made as part of its major drive to achieve Airport Carbon Accreditation at the “Neutrality” level. The implementation of IMServ’s technology will play a significant role in helping with data management for the airport to reach this goal.
Other initiatives include achieving medium-term corporate targets such as the development of a Sustainable Travel Plan to encourage more diverse and greener modes of travel to work, and the implementation of incentivised schemes for participation in energy efficiency projects. Long term corporate objectives include the commitment of organisational resources to energy management, continual consideration of the potential for on-site renewable energy projects, and an annual review of options for the procurement of energy from renewable sources.
Commenting on Nationwide Utilities’ relationship with IMServ, George said: “As our business continues to develop and our clients’ needs become more diverse, we plan to make increased use of IMServ’s offerings. While our clients are always concerned with saving energy, and therefore money, we envisage a wider take-up for carbon-reducing schemes. With the help of IMServ we will support our customers’ ambitions to ‘develop the greening of their businesses’.”