ESOS is a Government-led scheme introduced to incentivise large businesses to embrace energy efficiency initiatives and cut down on the carbon emissions they produce. Targeted at larger businesses there are certain requirements businesses need to meet in order to comply with the scheme; they must be registered, employ 250 or more people, or have an annual turnover greater than £44m and an annual balance sheet greater than £38m.
The ESOS legislation requires organisations that fall into scope to carry out audits every 4 years on their energy usage; looking at their buildings, processes, and transport. These audits are accompanied by cost-effective recommendations for how they can reduce their energy usage.
We help many organisations with their ESOS audits and reporting.
Recently we delivered an ESOS Phase 3 compliance service to one of our customers. They are a large-scale multi-site high energy user, so we conducted an ESOS audit at a sample selection of sites, as required by ESOS legislation. As standard, we produced an ESOS building energy audit report, complete with recommendations for energy saving opportunities.
One of these energy efficiency recommendations was a lighting system upgrade for one of their office buildings. Following up on the audit the customer asked us for a more in-depth calculation of the potential costs and savings involved with such an upgrade and how this could be applied across other buildings.
To do this, we revisited one of the ESOS sample sites, choosing the largest site to collect a more detailed dataset, and conducted further analysis and data gathering of the building to produce a comprehensive report that included a full estimate for installing more energy efficient types of lighting. Our analysis also considered the low occupancy of the building resulting in the recommendation of Passive Infrared Sensors.
The detailed analysis focused on a representative sample area of 760m2 out of the building’s overall 16,102m2 floor area. This provides enough accurate information to be able to scale up and forecast a budget for implementation across the whole site as well as the whole estate of similar office buildings for the customer.
The final report provided the customer with an independent, compelling, and thorough business case that can be presented to senior decision makers, stakeholders and investors. It included a full evaluation of the financial business case for the project, analysis of the total value of the project to the organisation if rolled out to multiple sites, as well as a comprehensive list of benefits and considered key risks and the strategies in place to mitigate them.
Georgina Wisby, Energy Consultant at TEAM, who has extensive experience in energy saving analysis and project management, said:
With the report guiding the business about the benefits of investment, it also offers a breakdown of savings it could make. The lighting system upgrade suggested offers a potential saving of £791 per year for the sample area alone. This equates to an annual saving of 5,491 kWh of energy and 1.125 tonnes of CO2e, a significant reduction in emissions.