Dover's focus on efficiency

Whilst there are options to reduce the impact of energy consumption through the implementation of renewable technology, the focus for industry in the UK has specifically been on reducing the consumption by the end user.

Through this approach the Port of Dover has achieved the Carbon Trust Standard; a UK standard for good practice in carbon measurement, management but crucially in delivering those all-important reductions. A reduction in the Port’s actual carbon footprint of 13.2% was achieved over the three-year assessment period.

The UK government, through the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, has introduced a mandatory scheme called the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme which includes all public and private organisations that consume over 6000MWh through a half hourly meter. The scheme involves a range of reputational, behavioural and financial drivers that specifically focus on good carbon accounting and delivering reductions in consumption. Within this scheme, electricity produced from renewables is treated in the same way as electricity produced from the more conventional fossil fuels unless the renewable energy has been produced internally by the organisation without obtaining any other sort of tax incentive. As the title for the scheme suggests, efficiency is therefore the name of the game.

The scheme was announced in 2007 with the 1st April 2010 to 31st March 2011 being the first monitoring and reporting year. We await the outcome from the first set of reports.

Monitoring and Management

Getting a good monitoring programme set up was the first step in delivering reductions. Prior to setting up the energy management programme in 2006 it was difficult to obtain the data needed in order to focus efforts appropriately. The utility meters in place did not allow the management team to drill down into the data to find out where intensive use was occurring and the network of internal meters had been set up for billing purposes so did not provide information that fully reflected operational areas. A programme of installing automatic meters was introduced which not only improved spatial coverage but also provided half hourly data to improve temporal understanding.

The Buildings Energy Management System (BEMS) was also enhanced to better monitor and manage the port’s Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems. The BEMS allows technicians to view the status of HVAC systems and parameters as well as reset plant and undertake system changes remotely from a computer.

Optimising the Port’s use of the BEMS system has minimised operational wastage by ensuring that building temperature is controlled to meet operational need but not exceed it in terms of heating, cooling or the time over which this process is needed. Graphs of temperature curves are analysed allowing the heating or cooling system to be optimised. The correct temperature is reached in time for the operation to commence but no earlier and the system closes down before the end of the operation to take advantage of the latent temperature which is retained. The detail within the system allows the changes to be focused and made easily to reduce any wasted energy. This has advantages in areas that have regular working hours as it allows for seasonal changes to be incorporated gradually; but also allows operations that are less regular, such as our cruise operation, to be modified easily on an irregular timetable.

We now have a good coverage of detailed energy data (although we continue to improve our network) and have made use of a web based Advanced Monitoring and Targeting System that can plot the consumption straight from the meters or BEMS. The package can provide comparison graphs so you can view whether an area is improving or see the results of an energy saving measure that you have implemented. It can also be used to improve understanding of the influence of variables that could affect consumption or to provide information on relative consumption. For instance, we have measured consumption against the number of pallets in temperature controlled stores or degree days for an office block.

The data allows the management team to clearly identify inefficiencies and therefore focus the development of solutions to give the best results in the most cost effective ways.

As the subject of energy saving becomes an increasingly critical element of any industry the technological solutions improve to meet the market demand. The Port of Dover has been able to make improvements to infrastructure that has delivered significant results.

One of the most successful projects has been a complete refit of high mast lighting across the Eastern Docks ro-ro ferry terminal which delivered increased light output with much fewer lamps. Each lamp fitting (luminaire) has been designed to light the maximum area of ground without loss of light upwards or outwards from the unit. This has allowed us to significantly reduce the number of high masts needed to light the docks and has delivered carbon savings of over 300 tonnes per year as well as noticeably reducing light pollution.

Much of the lighting for commercial and road traffic signage has been converted to LED which has the added advantage of reducing maintenance and waste due to the extended life of the bulbs. Further controls have been used to keep lights turned off when they are not needed. This has included microwave sensors on lighting in passenger walkways which turn the lights on when they detect movement and daylight sensors on high masts. These measures are regularly examined to find further improvements and a future project involves updating the high mast sensors to include an astronomical clock and an adjustable photocell. The astronomical clock predicts the time of sunrise and sunset and adjusts it each day to allow the time at which the high masts turn on to be finely adjusted automatically. The addition of the photocell will provide a back up to turn the lights on at other times if the day is particularly dark. This set up delivers the light levels required for safe operation in the specific scenario that is experienced without having to set sensors that would operate in a variety of scenarios leading to wastage.

Obtaining energy savings through operational efficiency is one of the biggest challenges of any energy management programme as, unlike engineered efficiency, it requires the support of the workforce and users. At the Port of Dover we have tried to make energy saving something that everyone considers in all their activities. This has been developed through an Energy Monitors group which includes volunteers from all working areas as well as the major port tenants. The energy monitors encourage people in their working area to behave in an energy efficient manner, come up with energy saving ideas and report any maintenance issues that could be wasting energy.

Specific projects have worked directly with the managers of energy intensive operations to deliver results. Considerable success has been achieved in the Cargo Terminal area where, together with terminal operator George Hammond PLC, the Port has improved the efficiency of the temperature controlled stores; an area in which palletised fruit is stored before being sent to British and European fresh produce markets. This is a high energy intensive operation and the way the operation is carried out affects energy consumption as much as the quality of the infrastructure and the refrigerant units. The partnership involves detailed analysis of energy consumption to show where efficiency improvements can be made, sharing ideas and implementing energy saving practices. Through this work, 101 tonnes of CO2 equivalents have been saved per annum.

With the changing climate and depleting resources there is no doubt that energy efficiency will remain high on the environmental, engineering and management agenda for some time.

The Port of Dover will continue to look for further improvements and work is underway to enhance the dissemination of real time energy data to the user in order to further influence behavioural change. Moreover, as new technology becomes available, port systems will be further improved.