Torbay Council’s Energy Management Team

The Energy Management Team monitor energy and water consumption across the Council's non-domestic buildings, including schools, libraries, and offices. Torbay Council has an annual energy bill of £3.5m and a carbon footprint of c. 19.000 tonnes. Climate change and increasing energy costs are key drivers for reducing energy consumption, and Torbay is committed to a 20% cut in carbon dioxide by 2012. This page provides some information about the work of the Energy Management Team:

Some Energy Team Corporate Projects, working with other Council departments to reduce our CO2 emissions…..

Voltage optimisation:

The installation of Voltage Optimisation equipment into Roebuck house – a technology that optimises electricity supply voltage. So far, the equipment has been making impressive savings of just under 10% on the whole building.

Draught proofing:

Both Roebuck House and Electric House have been draught proofed using Quatro-seal, a unique product sealing around the windows to keep heat in and draughts out in the winter time. With expected savings of £3,100 and 14.2 CO₂tonnes per year.

Solar film:

The south façade windows of Roebuck House have been filmed, to deflect excess heat in the summer, to reduce the requirement for air conditioning in the building. With expected savings of £836 and 4.5 CO₂ tonnes per year.

Light Bulb Amnesty:

Staff were asked to trade in any old style lightbulbs for new energy efficient versions. With savings of around £10 in electricity costs and 50kg CO₂ each year per bulb traded.

Car Park Upgrades:

Work took place in Autumn 2009 to upgrade the lighting system in Victoria car park, expected savings from this are £6,000 and 36 CO₂tonnes per year_.

At the same time the Building management system was installed into Victoria, enabling greater control of electrical systems with expected savings of £5,900 and 35 CO₂ tonnes per year.

Street Bollards:

In January 2010 540 of Torbay’s street bollards were upgraded to LED from fluorescents, reducing the wattage from 36 to 7watts in each bollard. The new bollards also have daylight sensing, meaning that they don’t switch on when there is sufficient daylight not to need the bollards. This project is predicted to save the Council £13,000 in electricity costs and reduce its carbon emissions by 77 tonnes every year.

Lower Union Lane Car Park:

A similar technology to that used in Roebuck house was installed in Lower Union Lane car park which reduces the voltage powering the lights. So-far half of the car park has been upgraded with this new technology, to allow careful monitoring of the equipment before going ahead with the second half. So-far savings are looking to be in the region of 28% off the whole electric bill for the site.

Street lighting:

In October 2009 a section of Torbay’s streetlighting was upgraded and the energy consumption reduced. This project changed existing lanterns and lamps from 250watt to 150 watt. This project is predicted to save £52,288 and 236 tonnes CO2 every year. Other areas of street lighting do not necessarily have the same large scope for reductions, however we are now looking at alternative ways to make savings on our street lighting – we will keep you updated.

Torre Abbey Flood Lights:

All of the flood lights that light up the beautiful building at night were recently converted from sodium lights to LED’s. The colour has changed slightly, it is not so orange, and the energy consumption is predicted to be reduced by £1,164 and 8.64 tonnes CO2 every year. This is a 79% reduction.

Torre Abbey Internal Lighting:

Torre Abbey currently has several hundred halogen lights lighting the artefacts and painting inside. We are working with the staff there and suppliers to find a suitable low energy alternative to replace the halogens. We are trialling some new LED bulbs, that would reduce energy consumption by about 90%! And give off no UV rays which can cause damage.

Energy Saving week 2010:

Back in February this year the Energy and Environmental Policy team joined forces along with the ‘Green Team’ of energy envoys to run ‘Energy Saving Week’. With the winning building saving 27% over a ‘normal’ week, it just shows what savings can be made. The winners received £2000 to spend in their building on ‘energy saving’ measures. So far they have installed solar film onto the south facing windows and are planning to have pull cords fitted to give staff more control to ‘switch off’.

Smart metering/ AMR:

In preparation for the Carbon Reduction Commitment – energy efficiency scheme: DECC: Carbon Reduction Commitment opens in a new window

Torbay Council are installing new AMR meters onto gas and electricity meters. This is the technology of automatically collecting consumption, diagnostic, and status data from water or energy metering devices and transferring that data to a central database for billing, troubleshooting, and analyzing. So putting an end to manual meter readings, estimates and unaccurate billing. See British Gas: Smart Metering opens in a new window

for more info.

Building Management System:

The main function of the Council’s Building Management System is to control heating in our buildings. Along side this it is used to control some lighting, timers, and generally monitor consumptions of gas, electricity and water. One example of how the system is utilized in energy management: a water leak was recently detected on the system at a school. The leak turned out to be a tap left running and was losing water at 0.35 meters cubed an hour. Since this was in the school holidays this could have continued until the start of the new school term (14 days), this would have been a cost of £500 / 117 meters cubed. The school was informed, and the tap turned off.

Contact Energy Management Team

Tel: 01803 208966
Email: energymanagement@torbay.gov.uk
Fax: 01803 208976

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