GREEN MATTERS
Pumps – missing in climate action?
Steve Schofield of the British Pump Manufactureres Association (BPMA) argues the case for an 11 Point UK Strategy.
L
iquid pumps and related equipment are the single largest user of electricity in industrial and commercial applications. In the UK this amounts to 45TWh annually which is equivalent to the annual electricity use of 12 million homes.
The UK Government has announced a ten-point plan for a
green industrial revolution covering clean energy, transport, nature, and innovative technologies. The blueprint is intended to allow the UK to wipe out its contribution to climate change by 2050. However, the contribution of pumps to global warming is not being addressed in this ambitious plan, despite the UK’s past commitment to tackle the issue. This is a serious oversight, given the high energy use of pumps and their critical role in maintaining our industrial base and standard of living.
The policy challenge Larger industrial pump users have been required to carry out audits of energy use and introduce improvements under the UK’s Energy Saving Opportunity Scheme (ESOS), since 2015. However, some have taken advantage of a loophole allowing them to opt out of this requirement, if they complied with the ISO 50001 standard aimed at energy management. This has meant they have avoided identifying inefficient pumping systems and subsequently making them more efficient, which would significantly cut their energy use and help the environment. The latest revision of ISO50001 has closed this loophole but weak market surveillance and low penalties mean that action in this important area remains stalled. A ‘carrot and stick’ approach is needed. Fines should be significantly increased to make sure that ‘bad-players’ can no longer afford to ignore the problem. In addition, appropriate government support should be provided to make the financial case for change more attractive and help the drive towards Net Zero.
The missing 11th point The government’s ten-point plan towards a Green Industrial Revolution are diverse, and in some cases the anticipated savings are some time away. They range from supporting wind power, nuclear energy and zero emission vehicles, to encouraging green buildings and transport, including advanced aviation. There is a praiseworthy emphasis on securing quality
28 June 2021
future jobs in these ‘new horizon’ sectors as well as helping the environment. However, there is a notable lack of attention to some existing core sectors of UK industry that also have a bright future, but which need to invest in energy savings. We believe the huge savings to be realised by improving the energy efficiency of our pumps and pumping systems should become the 11th point in the Government’s plan. To take a few examples, the anticipated savings in million
tonnes of CO2 equivalent in the 12-year period up to 2032 from greening public transport, the shift to zero emissions vehicles, and green ships amounts to 7 MtCO2
e. However, if
we extrapolate over the period from 2015 to 2032 the hoped- for annual energy savings of 7TWh, produced by greening pumps, would have amounted to 119 TWh or around 60 MtC02e. This is on a much greater scale than the CO2
savings
of the three elements of the government’s 10-point plan previously mentioned. In fact, it is almost three times the expected longer-term
savings – between 2023 and 2030 - from advancing wind power, which according to the government figures is expected to attract around £20 billion of private investment by 2030 and amounts to around 5% of 2018 UK emissions.
How did pumps get missed?
To move a liquid from A to B a pump is required. Therefore, industrial and domestic applications are a vital component of modern living. Given their importance, it is not surprising that they are big energy users. The question has always been, can better engineering improve matters and deliver significant energy savings that can help us on the road to net zero? Many pumping systems operate inefficiently, however as the pump is ‘doing what it is supposed to’ there is no focus or requirement to look at the energy efficiency of the pump or the system in which it operates. A lot of the installed base of pumps is older technology and
inherently more energy hungry, and which invariably have been ‘over specified’ because engineers and plant managers have wanted to ensure that if they need ‘more muscle’ for their processes, there is extra capacity available. Older style pumps were therefore typically over-sized and as such seldom work at their optimum efficiency. Newer pumps are designed to operate efficiently at variable speeds, so they have the built-in flexibility demanded without
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