Is UK industry focusing on energy efficiency?

Citation

(1999), "Is UK industry focusing on energy efficiency?", Facilities, Vol. 17 No. 12/13. https://doi.org/10.1108/f.1999.06917lab.004

Is UK industry focusing on energy efficiency?

Is UK industry focusing on energy efficiency?

Keywords: Industry, United Kingdom, Energy

An independent survey of the energy requirements of UK industry, undertaken with senior executives, has found that less than one in ten businesses expect to lower their energy requirements in the next five years while almost a fifth expect their usage to increase.

In addition, when reviewing sites' energy requirements, only 9 per cent of respondents mentioned considering environmental issues, compared to 61 per cent who said that cost was the key driving factor.

Over 300 senior executives from industries including iron and steel, paper, chemical, hotel and catering, food and drink, healthcare and ceramics were interviewed for the survey commissioned by Transco, the natural gas transporter. Half of all businesses surveyed had annual fuel bills between £50,001 and £100,000, a fifth had bills between £100,001 and £250,000 and a third had bills in excess of £250,000.

"With the Climate Change Levy announced at the last Budget, it is vital businesses evaluate their energy requirements to see where savings can be made and environmental efficiency improved" says Laurence Wade, Business Development Manager, Transco Market Development.

From April 2001, the "energy tax" is forecast to raise £l .75 billion a year and it is designed to play a major role in helping meet the UK's targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This includes the Government's commitment undertaken at the Kyoto Climate Change Conference to reduce C02 emissions by 20 per cent of 1990 levels by 2008-2010.

Negotiations are now underway with industry and trade associations to structure the levy fairly and the Government has promised to take into account additional factors such as energy intensive users and the effects of international competition. Even so, combined with other factors such as the EC Directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control, which will require most medium to large industrial installations in the EU to obtain an integrated operating permit limiting values for emissions to air water and land, it means industrial sites' energy and environmental efficiency must be improved wherever possible.

The good news is that, as the survey found, considerable effort is being made to improve efficiency. Three-quarters of all respondents had implemented some energy efficiency measures. In most cases, the businesses with larger fuel bills were more likely to have executed such measures as opposed to companies with smaller energy requirements. Improvements reported include the replacement of boilers, which a third of all organisations had renewed, while around a fifth said they have implemented an energy management system, employed an energy manager, increased gasload connection or undertaken a combined heat and power (CHP) project.

CHP is rapidly growing in popularity with UK industry because of its financial and environmental benefits. Its popularity was reflected in the results as it was voted one of the two most popular energy projects respondents would like to implement. Installing CHP or implementing an integrated energy management system were named by almost a third of all respondents.

"The results clearly show UK industry's attention is being drawn towards energy issues, driven by legislative requirements and a need to increase competitiveness," says Laurence Wade, "Transco is promoting energy efficient gas technology to all areas of UK industry. This includes improving existing equipment through boiler renewal and process control as well as leading initiatives to use new technology such as gas powered cooling. By doing this, Transco is helping companies build on their achievements and meet their future commitments on energy consumption and environmental performance."

Most recently, Transco has undertaken a joint two-year initiative with the DTI to provide financial contributions to businesses' feasibility studies on large-scale CHP applications.

The programme offers partial funding for site-specific CHP studies and will provide support via CHP specialists to help individual companies during the assessment process. The programme aims to stimulate £1 million of work on such CHP evaluation.

For more information about how energy efficient gas technologies can benefit your operations or to find out about the Transco/DTI CHP programme please contact Transco Market Development on +44 (0)800 328 2626.