TEAM’s Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) Diary
Ellen Salazar TEAM’s ESOS Lead Assessor
ESOS Diary Date: Feb 2015
Since my last diary entry, we’ve started our ESOS building energy survey work! We were up north visiting 2 companies, each very different, but both really interesting.
Identifying wastage energy
At the first company, we reviewed their half-hourly electricity data, and we found an interesting, and what looked to be unusual, amount of electricity use between 17:30 – 18:30 each day, every day (including weekends, bank holidays, Christmas holidays, etc.). Figuring this was far too regular to be based on human behaviour, and was therefore more likely to be something automatic (like a timeswitch), we asked the building manager to peek into the BMS system.
We then proceeded to the far end of the building, and as we returned, he came out of his office to reveal that the BMS system was switching on the heater batteries in the air conditioning system at 17:30, and then switching them back off at 18:30. He promised to get the controls contractor in to take a look at it, and we promised to tally up the cost of this wastage.
Upon returning to the office, we worked it out to cost £1,440 per year in wasted electricity! That was just for the cost of running the heater batteries. We didn’t even try to guestimate the cost of the air conditioning required to overcome this excess, unneeded heat!
Linking submeters
At the second company, we walked through their campus of 3 buildings which were all built within the last few years. We saw some very interesting and innovative examples of LED light fittings! And we discovered they have a large number of “Part L” submeters which are currently not sending data to any central point, which is always such a shame to see. After we finish our ESOS work with them, we will revisit this point, as there is undoubtedly quite a lot of “low-hanging fruit” to be found, if only the submetered data could be displayed and analysed in a sensible manner.
So, all-in-all, it was an excellent start to our ESOS “boots on the ground” energy survey work!! We’re very grateful to the hospitality shown us by our first 2 ESOS companies.
Find out more from TEAM
TEAM’s ESOS certified consultants can help your organisation through all stages of the ESOS submission process, from energy surveys to preparing the submission document. To discover why you should choose team to help with your ESOS submission by click here.