BSEE
LIGHTING
Striving for Carbon Zero
Sarah Handley, Carbon Neutral Programme manager at Siemens plc, talks about their drive to be a more energy ecient and environmentally friendly company to hit the Paris 2030 target
possible ways to adapt as a business to achieve this. “We were given a blank piece of paper and told to reduce carbon. We had to be open minded” said Handley. “When it comes to regulations and targets, the bar is always changing so we have to be aware of those changes and factor them into our plans. Obviously, as such a big company we had to ensure our ideas helped the environment while improving our business in a way that can be carried into the future. The four key areas we looked at were: Energy efficiency; the fleet; our green tariff and distributed energy.” Retired CEO, Juergen Maier, was a trailblazer for decarbonisation for his three decades in the job and oversaw the opening of their wind turbine factory in Hull.
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“Our new CEO, Carl Ennis, is just as passionate and supportive. Strong leadership is everything when it comes to making positive change and they need to be prepared to push boundaries.”
iemens has committed itself to becoming a carbon neutral company in line with the Paris agreement and has looked at all
“The first target we tackled was the fleet. We are currently on track with plans to implement electric vehicles in our fleet which will have a significant impact on reducing our carbon emission over the next two to three years.”
Handley said the next biggest factor they looked at was the use of energy in their factories and big buildings. “Around 25% of total carbon emissions can be attributed to heating, and lighting is also a factor, so controlling this came down to basic housekeeping and making people aware of the amount of energy they were using. As a result of our Energy Efficiency (EEP2) project at our Newcastle site we reduced our carbon emissions by installing LED lighting and controls, heating and compressed air improvements. We decided to take a broader view of telling people about the issues we were facing and the targets we wanted to hit. Getting people to ask themselves about their impact on the environment both at work and at home. This approach seems to have made the biggest change, because people take our targets as a company and turn it into a personal improvement they can apply wherever they are.”
“Listening was also key to engaging employees and the local community. Siemens UK launched a carbon reduction investment fund in order to support our global commitment of being carbon neutral by 2030. A fund was created by charging an internal price per ton of carbon emissions from gas and electricity. The aim was to raise enough seed funding for five to ten carbon reduction projects in Siemens UK operations. More than 60 ideas were submitted by employees over six weeks. These ranged from innovative solutions, such as using a digital twin for gas turbines, to energy efficiency measures like installing new air curtains for factories.”
Another change was to look at the type of lighting being used around the sites. “We realised that the car parks were being lit up at night. Funding from our Carbon Competition enabled us to install beautiful new ‘renewable energy’ streetlights that use wind and solar at the Manchester office. This reduced the amount of electricity we were using while adding a modern aesthetic to an otherwise overlooked part of our site.”
Handley explains that while they have been focussing on reducing their own emissions as a company, Siemens is also helping their clients to do the same.
Thus far, Siemens has initiated several energy efficiency projects at their sites all over the world. The technologies and measures implemented include combined heat and power, absorption chillers, air conditioning, hydraulic calibration, heat recovery and cooling towers. One of the projects already implemented took place at a plant in Finspång, Sweden, where Siemens develops, produces, tests and maintains industrial gas turbines up to 54 megawatts. Here, we have implemented a significant number of measures, thus significantly improving the energy efficiency of the building.
Not only will they be saving resources that are becoming increasingly scarce, these projects are financially beneficial for their company. Their website states that for many years they have assisted their clients in improving previously undiscovered energy savings and have optimized more than 7000 buildings which reduced the CO2 emissions by 10.5 million tonnes per year.
30 BUILDING SERVICES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER MAY 2020
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