FEATURE Sustainability
Carbon planning
Dr Torill Bigg, Chief Carbon Reduction Engineer, Tunley Engineering explains the key steps to follow to reach carbon neutrality
W 1. Measure
In carbon planning you need to set a baseline by measuring your current carbon footprint. To complete this you will need to decide what to include and what to leave out – this is called setting your scope and boundary. You need to include all relevant emissions sources, and what is relevant is decided by what you have control over and what you are able to make changes to. Hence, make an inventory of the assets and activities of your business that are within your control and this is your list of carbon emission sources. If you have a large number of assets, such as a fl eet of pumping systems, then you can record that list at a higher level, such as at process level rather than individual component asset level. Next, you’ll need to calculate the amount of carbon emissions from each of these sources – each for one year’s worth of carbon emissions. Start by recording data that you already have against each of your assets and activities. For example, you might know the total amount of electricity used per site or per submeter, by all of your electrical equipment in kWh from your electricity invoice or from your meter reading. Or, you may be operating a 12kWh pump at 80% power for fi ve hours a day, so could easily calculate the electricity used by that pump. Record either electricity in total kWh over a year, or an inventory of assets, and sum up the total power requirement in kWh for the year. For your baseline, an annual fi gure of kWh of electricity is suffi cient. More details later will allow you to create a carbon reduction plan, itemised asset by asset, but at this stage we are looking for the starting point. Likewise, you should list items that use fuels directly on site, such as heating boilers that use gas, or assets that burn oil, solid fuels or other gaseous fuels.
26 June 2022 | Automation
e are all aware that something needs to be done to reduce our carbon footprint, but many of us
have no idea where to start. Of course, the best place to start is to measure what your current carbon emissions are.
And, again, the writing of the item or the amount of that fuel purchased for one year will give you in kWh a value for those assets. You can repeat this for vehicles recorded
in litres of fuel used, or calculate the carbon footprint from the number of miles covered by the vehicles. Also include items such as water used, which can be completed from invoices in cubic metres of water purchased and wastewater treated. Finally, include materials used and those disposed of. In an offi ce you might be using offi ce paper for printing or photocopying, cardboard or plastics, metals or glass in manufacturing, or aggregates in construction: listing all of them will give you the emission sources to calculate the carbon footprint.
2. Calculate
Calculating your carbon emissions is not that tricky. There are several online calculators, or use information provided by the government. These will guide you how to convert kWh of electricity, cubic metres of water and miles driven in a car into carbon-dioxide equivalents. This should complete the list of assets and activities that are emission sources, the amount of relevant emissions for carbon dioxide, such as kWh electricity or litres of diesel, and the emission fi gures from the government information multiplying the emission fi gures per litre or kWh by the number of litres or kWh gives you carbon dioxide equivalents in tonnes or kilogrammes for each individual item. A sum of these is your carbon footprint.
3. Reduce Set realistic changes for each one of the assets and activities that are potential emissions sources. For example, you might be able to change your electricity tariff to an eco tariff , whereby the electricity you purchase is generated by a renewable source like solar panels or wind turbines. You might even be able to set a plan longer term to fi t solar panels of your own and so generate your own renewable electricity and reduce your reliance on the national grid. You could fi t water-saving devices, and buy electric vehicles instead of fossil-
Dr Torill Bigg, Chief Carbon Reduction Engineer, Tunley Engineering
fuel vehicles and even install charging points on the company premises and, with additional use of batteries, this could even be charged from solar panels. The fi rst thing to do at this stage is to
reduce demand on energy so check your assets and consider their effi ciency. Any asset releasing too much heat, noise or vibration is running ineffi ciently, meaning energy is being wasted. So, a maintenance intervention would reduce that wasted energy and automatically make your assets both more effi cient and cost eff ective but also reduce your carbon footprint, too.
4. Report
Now is the time to share what you’ve found with all of your stakeholders, customers, suppliers, employees, senior management and the community: Let everybody know that you are on a carbon-reduction journey. Let them know that you have measured your carbon footprint and have set yourself carbon reduction targets. Then put the plans into action.
Monitor your success; with each new initiative measure electricity used before and after servicing machinery and equipment that had previously been ineffi cient; measure gas use before and after implementing insulation; calculate carbon emissions from diesel vehicles and compare them to the new calculation with electric vehicles.
Monitor monthly over the year, and in a year’s time re-measure your carbon footprint – and again tell the world how well you have done.
CONTACT:
Tunley Engineering
www.tunley-engineering.com
automationmagazine.co.uk
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