Whenever the subject of organisations increasing their electrical capacity raises its head. I can't help but think back to the classic Star Trek scene which seemed to occur in almost every episode. Captain Kirk would demand the ship shifted to warp speed only to be told by Scottie.....
I wonder if the Star Trek enterprise ever considered Energy efficiency as a way to mitigate against these situations. I certainly don't recall seeing an Energy expert on the bridge or any talk of energy reduction projects.
"Beam me up Scottie, someone has left the lights on, I said we should have installed motion sensors"
Whenever I hear about organisations considering upgrading the size of their electrical capacity I always suggest they look at efficiency gains first. One particular client I am involved with did raise the question of........
"Is it better to invest £3million in upgrading our electrical infrastructure or can we address the capacity issues we face by investing the same funds in energy efficiency projects"
I am glad to report that particular client has decided on the latter. The answer to the question isn't always straightforward. But if you can create the additional capacity you require through energy efficiency savings the argument is simple.
Investing in upgrading your electrical capacity saves absolutely no energy whatsoever. Doing so also sends out a message that ultimately if your organisation requires more power they will just go out and purchase it. This option impacts massively on £££ as ultimately you consume even more energy and your capacity charges increase.
Whereas if your strategy is to acquire the additional capacity you require by becoming more efficient you send out a very different message. Straight away you are announcing a move towards efficiency.
This has massive follow on opportunities, as not only will you reduce your energy consumption and energy spend for years to come, you will also be declaring that your current capacity is the yardstick you can not exceed.
The latter point is a great driver for efficiency, as to remain below that defined level of capacity you will have to set thresholds at building and process level that can't be exceeded.
Writing the above paragraph reminds me that the only building I am aware of, that consumes no more energy that it was designed to, is a Passivhaus building. The reason this building does this is because in order to maintain its Passivhaus status it can not go over a defined kWh/m2.
In order to reduce consumption and achieve additional capacity the Passivhaus model would be a good strategy to adopt. I am not suggesting buildings adopt the same stringent metric as Passivhaus but one similar. I wonder how many buildings are designed to achieve agreed kWh/m2 targets? Not very many I suspect.
I recently had to quantify the additional power consumption of a MRI scanner which a client intended to install. Based on the anticipated hours of use the additional power equated to around 100,000 kWh's per year.
That particular client decided to go ahead with the purchase as that was a major growth area for their business. However, it would have been incredibly refreshing if they had decided to only approve the purchase of the MRI scanner if they could first of all find the required 100,000 kWh's of energy through efficiency measures.
Any organisation believing it needs more power would do well to identify where its inefficiencies lie and then quantify the value of addressing these, both in terms of a reduction in load and annual consumption.
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