SUSTAINABILITY
STORAGE SAVINGS
David Hilton, Managing Director at Vickers Electronics, part of the Vickers Energy Group, explains the challenges that businesses operating large warehouses, sheds and distribution centres face in the fight against increasing energy prices.
Conserving energy is no longer a responsibility for businesses – it has become a necessity. With the cost saving message being high on the economic agenda, businesses are looking for ways to save money, while improving the sustainability and energy performance of the buildings they operate.
With the cost of energy increasingly affecting businesses’ bottom lines, and with prices set to rise indefinitely, companies are considering new ways of reducing bills and improving the energy performance of their buildings.
When developing a sustainability strategy for industrial spaces, such as warehouses and distribution centres, businesses can often overlook one of the biggest energy saving capabilities available: energy management systems.
ON-SITE CHALLENGES The set-up of industrial spaces is
often a contributing factor to large energy consumption. In distribution centres, energy wastage is often high as doors open and close as deliveries are moved, letting out heat naturally. Meanwhile, in stock warehouses, some products may need to be kept above a minimum temperature, resulting in crippling energy bills if
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heating isn’t focussed to where this stock is stored.
Savings are further hindered by conventional heating controls, which are often unreliable, inefficient and wasteful due to inaccurate thermostats, manually-adjusted clocks and dated technology.
THE SOLUTION New ’smart technology products’
use self-learning, predictive programming, coupled with high accuracy digital temperature sensing, to ensure the existing heating on-site is controlled in the most efficient way.
Today’s energy management system intelligently links all heaters in an industrial space and senses and reacts to variable conditions, such as a door opening and closing. When a door opens, the heaters closest to it switch off, and then turn back on when the door closes, so that desired temperatures are attained and maintained in the right areas and at the right time. This results in a reduction in both energy consumption and cost.
These savings can be instrumental for companies wanting to reinvest in further sustainable systems such
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as lighting or window and door sets. This is exactly what electronics and maintenance products distributor, RS Components, did.
By working with Vickers Energy Group, the company has cut its energy consumption across 10 UK sites by almost 40% through the installation of energy management systems in the warehouses of its trade counters.
RS Components was able to save tens of thousands of pounds each year, which the business reinvested into other energy-saving projects, including intelligent lighting systems at its trade counters and LED lighting units, which contribute to further cost and energy savings in the sustainability chain.
A business reason for driving a sustainability strategy for large spaces should therefore not only focus on the ecological benefits. The incentive is the savings that can be achieved to mitigate the costs of rising energy bills.
www.vickers-energy.co.uk
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