savings on stream
five years, with a lifetime ceiling on carbon
cost of under £100 per tonne. With those pre-
“We realised that there were going to be other projects outside
conditions, the organisation’s clients put the five year criterion, so undertook to put those into place
forward the projects which will most readily
conform.
wholly from the Council’s funds, as soon as we were able to
Is there not a danger that the fund holder
could run out of these readily qualifying
make the investment. There was a building management
projects – the ‘low-hanging fruit’ as they are
system that needed installing, and a biomass project which we
often called - early into the relationship, and
be unable to ‘re-cycle’ the savings from the
knew would have a payback far beyond the five years limit.”
early projects back into further Salix-qualify-
ing projects, while having to cover 100% of progress has Lincolnshire made with the
other projects out of its resources? projects it had identified?
Steve Golightly did not see that two-stream The lighting replacement is proceeding, as
approach as an issue. “We realised that there is the installation of voltage optimisers; a tech-
were going to be other projects outside the nology which helps reduce electricity con-
five year criterion so undertook to put those sumption by lowering voltage. For a given
into place wholly from the Council’s funds, as level of current being drawn, power consumed
soon as we were able to make the investment. is related to the square of the voltage.
“There was a building management system
that needed installing, for example, and a
biomass project which we knew would have a
Reducing power consumption
payback far beyond the five years limit.” It follows that by cutting voltage by 5% - and
all other factors remaining the same – power
Detailed calculations
drops about double that figure. Indeed, elec-
tricity savings of that magnitude were already
Whether a carbon reduction project qualifies being achieved in the County’s offices where
for funding from the ring-fenced loan fund can the technology had been installed before Salix
be determined by the detail of the calcula- Finance became involved.
tions involved. Steve Golightly outlined the implications
“On the first appraisal, it appeared that a of taking such a step, “While the potential car-
proposed lighting upgrade would not fall bon reduction was clearly important, the de-
within the Salix terms – its payback was mar- cision to proceed with powerPerfector volt-
ginally outside the five year limit. age power optimisers had to be taken after
“But on re-checking the data, which in- assessing its impact on other aspects of our
cluded the increasing price that we knew operations.
would have to be paid for electricity during “Our IT department was properly concerned
the lifetime of the project – the computed net about the effect on systems and carried out
savings increased, and brought the project thorough investigations with other users be-
comfortably inside the payback boundary at fore approving the installation. They took
4.5 years.” soundings from the IT departments of banks
With a total fund of £590,000 (sourced which had installed the same system. As those
equally from Salix and the County Council) institutions could never risk their networks go-
set up towards the end of 2008, how much ing down, the assurances were welcome.”
Lincolnshire had been financing such projects wholly from the Council’s budget until it could create
a fund with Salix Finance. This effectively doubled the level of investment for qualifying projects.
The Informed Executive
29
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