Winter energy savings: is your building ready?
When the clocks go back on Sunday 25th October, marking the end of British Summer Time (BST), colder weather isn’t far behind.
As temperatures drop, you’ll soon notice your energy use creeping up, along with costs. A few simple winter energy savings checks can help keep costs down by making sure you’re not using more energy than needed.
Here’s how to maximise the efficiency of your estate and keep energy costs under control, without compromising on comfort.
Get your heating plant serviced
If your heating hasn’t been serviced, now is the time. Boilers, heat pumps, pumps, valves and sensors that have sat idle all summer should be checked before they’re brought back online. A sensor that has drifted or a valve that is sticking can waste energy (and money) all season without anyone noticing.
How we help: our planned maintenance teams carry out seasonal plant checks, so systems come back online efficiently and reliably.
Check your BEMS schedules
Make sure your BEMS front end is set to adjust for the clock change automatically. If it isn’t, put a note in the diary to change it by hand. Retime networked controllers and any standalone time clocks at the same time. One controller left on the old time can run plant for an extra hour every day for the next five months, and you pay for every one of those hours.
Set your holiday schedules now
Many organisations close from 25th December to 4th January. That’s up to ten days of heating, ventilation and lighting running in an empty building, and being paid for, unless the holiday dates are set in advance. Check that frost protection stays active so the building is protected while the plant is off.
Optimise start/stop
Modern controls can learn when to start and stop your heating and cooling, based on how your building heats up and cools down. The building reaches comfort temperature just as people arrive, and the plant shuts down as early as it can. Few changes deliver savings as quickly.
Set achievable setpoints
Heating and cooling often run at the same time, fighting each other. Leave a deadband between them to stop this. For example, heat to 20°C and only allow cooling above 23°C. Also check your weather-compensation settings, where the controls use outside temperature to adjust flow temperatures. Good settings make a real difference on cold mornings followed by mild afternoons.
Try new winter energy savings projects
Now is also an ideal time to kickstart new energy-saving initiatives. One idea is to fit motion detectors in rooms that aren’t always occupied. They tell your Building Energy Management System (BEMS) when a room is empty, so it can lower temperatures and ease the load on your heating. Even a 2°C drop in the setback temperature saves a good amount of energy and the room can still quickly warm to a comfortable level once people are back in. This is just one of many ways Kendra can help optimise your building.
Align your BEMS with your heating policy
If you have a heating policy, check that your BEMS still matches it. Overrides, temporary changes and ‘just for now’ tweaks tend to build up over the year. Now is the ideal time to restore the right settings and start the new year as you mean to go on.
Measure the difference
With metering and energy data, you’ll see exactly where you’re using energy and can check whether your saving initiatives are working.
Comparing consumption against weather and occupancy shows real savings, picks up unusual use over the Christmas shutdown and provides tangible evidence to report against your energy and carbon targets.
Winter is also when energy prices and peak-time network charges bite hardest.
Our energy services team can review how and when you buy energy, so the savings in your building are matched by the right contract.
Know when to stop checking and start monitoring
Over time, your BEMS settings will drift. It happens for all sorts of reasons, like occupancy changes or faults that develop overnight and at weekends.
A one-off seasonal check helps, but it doesn’t keep savings in place over the winter.
That’s why we monitor buildings remotely, 24/7, from our Remote Optimisation Centre. Our engineers watch your plant and data around the clock and pick up things like: plant running out of hours, heating and cooling running at the same time or alarms that are building towards a breakdown.
Many of these things can be fixed remotely, before they lead to a cold building, a callout or a wasted month of energy.
Need help with your winter energy savings?
Whether you need a seasonal BEMS check, a maintenance visit, or round-the-clock monitoring and optimisation across your estate to prevent performance drift in all seasons, our specialists will help.
We’d love to hear from you, so please get in touch. Contact enquiries@kendraenergy.co.uk and we’ll direct you to the right person.
