Innovation in Action is a South Yorkshire, business-led network that fosters a new working method for identifying common challenges, sharing learning, and finding practical solutions as a community. The idea is to leverage the expertise of industry leaders and SMEs to drive meaningful change, accelerate innovation adoption, and unlock new growth opportunities.
The Energy Challenge is a pilot scheme that was created by the network to tackle energy and carbon waste, identify energy savings and reduce long-term costs, a common issue all businesses are facing.
The challenge model built on peer-to-peer collaboration, shared know-how, and support from industry experts and tech solution providers has proved hugely successful and is now being expanded. The business-led network are co-designing a series of bite-sized challenge projects that deliver quick wins for business and forge stronger working relationships across regional partners.
Energy Challenge Framework
Richard Bland AMID Programme Manager at Sheffield City Council comments
“The success of the 1st pilot would not have been possible without both the enthusiasm of the participating business leaders like Terry at EE Ingleton and the industry expertise of the solution focussed mentors like Jason at Professional Energy People (PEP) – helping to achieve practical changes with clear business benefits. We look forward to Terry and the team at PEP being actively involved in future Innovation In Action challenges.”
PEP’s Energy Challenge
EE Ingleton Engineering is a leading UK manufacturer of custom perforated panels, industrial screen products, and animal feed milling wear parts and spares. In more recent times, they have expanded into the architectural metalwork sector. As a high-energy consumer, they had already looked at ways to improve their plant equipment, investing heavily in this over the last decade. Driven by a proactive approach to energy management, they saw the Energy Challenge as the perfect opportunity for progress and an investment in their future.
The Professional Energy People (PEP) team were asked to bring its expertise and provide free mentoring support to EE Ingleton to identify potential energy savings and investment opportunities to help them make practical business decisions.
This involved an onsite audit of their business premises and a review of the operational equipment in use. We produced a priority list of potential energy, cost and carbon savings, capex needed with payback periods to help them decide whether to fast track certain investment.
Our findings identified that a new air compressor unit would use half of the energy of the old one, saving over 22 tonnes of carbon every year and pay back the investment within a year. Further support from our team involved identifying 50% of grant funding through the Sheffield City Council Low Carbon Project which brought the payback period down to less than 7 months.
Terry Lee, MD at EE Ingleton comments
“The Energy Challenge was a great project to be involved with and the support from Jason at PEP was fantastic. His energy-efficiency evaluation on our machinery plus support with funding was invaluable and provided real tangible benefits for the business. We’ve since replaced 2 old compressors and a boiler which will save us £20k in energy per year. £24K cost of the new machines supported by £12k grant means we will get payback in less than 7 months. The reduction in carbon footprint combined with the reduction in our energy bills is so important to us as a business going forward, and the lessons learned are now being applied to all our capital expenditure projects. Previously, energy consumption was not one of the main factors when considering the cost justification of projects. That has now changed, and is a major factor. Hopefully over the next year or so we will see further reductions in our energy usages and costs based on new machine upgrades.”
Jason Martin, Energy Manager at PEP comments
“It was good to be involved in this pilot scheme and use our Energy Management skills to add real value to the sustainability of EE Ingleton. Business owners and managers want practical advice in how to become more efficient backed up by simple and clear data which is the outcome of our energy audits. I often say, ‘If you can’t measure it, you can’t save it’ and this is another good example of that.”
Professional Energy People offer a complete energy efficiency management service that will reduce your carbon emissions, explore efficiency savings, and keep your business compliant to avoid any unwanted penalties.
For help and advice on your business energy or to book an audit contact our team.
Kommentare