Category A - Energy Efficiency Project
Energy Efficiency Project, Small User (>€200k):
Energy Efficiency Project, Medium User (<€1M, >€200k):
Energy Efficiency Project, Large User (>€1M):
Energy Efficiency Project, Small User (>€200k)
Highly Commended - Westport Woods Hotel & Spa
Judges Comments
"Westport Woods Hotel & Spa successfully targeted their lighting and control of electrical equipment to reduce energy costs. Effective implementation of this initiative achieved impressive overall savings of 29.5 MWh (18 tonnes of CO2), this project also has very good replication potential for similar hotels in Ireland."
Project Description
For over five years The Westport Woods Hotel & Spa has resolutely developed and followed an environmentally responsible plan. The use of energy has changed completely in the hotel during this time, from dependency on oil, to a totally oil-free system. Green energy, such as wood pellet, wood chip and solar panels, now powers the hotel, from bedrooms to swimming pool. Even "guest power" is harnessed through the dynamo driven exercise bikes in the gym!
The new bedroom block follows best energy practices and retrofitting has been carried out on the existing buildings where possible. Energy efficient lighting as well as better energy and water management practices are now part of every day life. Efficient composting, recycling and waste management form part of the new sustainable system. Employees are totally committed to helping in any way they can, and even guests are invited to become involved through green bins in every bedroom. There have been challenges along the way, but the net result is a dramatic reduction in the hotel's carbon footprint with CO2 emissions down by 57% since 2003.
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Winner - Crowne Paints Ireland Ltd.
Judges Comments
"Crown Paints re-engineered their lighting and heating control system to significantly reduce their energy use by 205.5MWh and 123.5 tonnes of CO2 emissions while simultaneously ensuring that the health & safety and staff requirements were not compromised. This project has very good replication potential for similar types of warehouse/storage facilities.
Project Description
Crown Paints Ireland Limited is a long established paints company, founded in 1930's, now employing 170 people in Ireland. With a comprehensive range of paints and coatings, including household names such as Crown, Berger, Sandtex and Sadolin, Crown Paints plays a major role in the Irish Retail Paints market.
The aim of this electrical consumption reduction project was to target energy consumption in lighting and heating. Old technology light fittings were replaced with new energy efficient fittings and lighting was control was also tackled, warehouse lighting has been totally automated.
The new lighting control system has light sensors which take advantage of natural daylight and motion sensors turns lights off in areas that are not in use. All designated walkways have a separate circuit and sensors.
Control of electrical heating in some of offices was also improved by installing timers. To date, electrical consumption has been reduced by 38% and rising. With the savings attained so far, these new systems have achieved all they were set out to do and more, giving confidence to continue energy saving projects into other areas of the business.
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Energy Efficiency Project, Medium User (<€1M, >€200k)
Highly Commended - Dalkia Limited
Judges Comments
"The Dalkia CHP system at the AIB Ballsbridge Head Quarters is an excellent example of on site tri-generation, which has reduced both the need to provide heating & cooling from traditional systems and at the same time providing electricity to the site. The Tri-generation system has saved 14.4 GWh of energy and over 2,163 tonnes of CO2 emissions to date.
Project Description
Dalkia are currently responsible for the operation and maintenance of over 810 CHP units worldwide totalling over 4,600MWe of power output. In Ireland, Dalkia Alternative Energy operates and maintains 24.6MWe of electrical generation through combined heat and power.
The AIB Bankcentre Trigeneration project was the result of an AIB initiative to reduce their energy costs and carbon footprint at their headquarters in Ballsbridge. The gas engine system delivers 1 MWe of power to the site with the recovered heat being used for space heating in the winter and cooling for the data centre.
The key to the project was the inclusion of a 730kW absorption chiller in the cycle. By making use of the available heat, not required for space heating during the summer, to cool the building, it allows the gas engine to be operated efficiently for over 8,000 hours per year.
Using the ESCO model, Dalkia have made a long term commitment to the project in terms guaranteed availability and performance over a period of 15 years to ensure that the system delivers energy savings to AIB throughout the lifecycle of the project.
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Winner - Alza Ireland Ltd.
Judges Comments
"Operating in a highly regulated environment, where changes in manufacturing are very challenging, the Alza energy team have reduced energy consumption by 15% by targeting the air condition system and demonstrated that significant energy savings can be achieved using by using a systematic approach without compromising product quality. This HVAC optimisation project has resulted in 1.17 GWh of energy saving and 649 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.
Project Description
Alza Ireland Ltd., based in Cashel Co. Tipperary, is one of the Johnson & Johnson family of companies, and operates a pharmaceutical production plant which has been in commercial production since 2004. Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is a multinational company engaged in the manufacture and sale of a broad range of products in the health care sector, as well as a provider of related services, for the consumer, pharmaceutical, medical devices and diagnostics markets.
The HVAC system was identified as one of the site's major energy consumers. A review of the HVAC system, using the Energy MAP approach, provided the production, engineering personnel and energy specialists with the information to identify a number of projects to reduce energy use and costs. These included installing variable speed drives on the warehouse air handling unit (AHU), modifying air changes rate in production aisles, changes to temperature setpoints, utilising free cooling on 4 of AHU's, reconfiguration of heating & cooling control valves on AHU's, improved time schedule of administration AHU at night and weekends. These projects have resulted in an annual reduction of 12.4 % of total energy consumption with a 1.17 GWh saving in energy use and 672 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
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Energy Efficiency Project, Large User (>€1M)
Highly Commended - Bausch & Lomb
Judges Comments
"Bausch & Lomb identified compressed air as the site significant energy user at 20% of total electrical energy consumption. This has been reduced to 15%, which was achieved through the application of energy efficient air drying using steam, sequence control of the multiple compressor installation, reduce system generation air pressure, the use of variable speed drive air compressors to supply peak demands and the linkage of sites both compressed generation sets which allowed fewer compressor to provide plant demand. The systematic approach to energy monitoring, control and management has shown savings have been sustained, the compressed air project has demonstrated savings of 1.14 GWh and 687 tonnes of CO2 per annum."
Project Description
Bausch & Lomb is a medical devices and pharmaceutical company with its head office located in Rochester, New York, employing over 12,500 people worldwide with annual sales exceeding $2.5 Billion. Bausch & Lomb have their largest global manufacturing facility located in Waterford where they employ over 1,500 people directly to manufacture contact lenses (medical division) and tablets (pharmaceutical division) devices operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
With an annual electricity consumption of 35 GWhs, one of the main objectives and challenges to the plant is to reduce this annual consumption while increasing production volumes to meet demand. The largest energy user on site was identified as compressed air generation, as it accounted for 20% of all electricity consumed annually. Therefore, an energy saving project was initiated to reduce the amount of energy the compressed air generation and distribution consumed. Three main ideas were formulated to reduce energy 1) replace the existing air dryers with steam dryers, 2) utilise a sequential controller to automate the compressors and 3) reduce manufacturing set points. As a direct result of these steps, the annual compressed air usage was reduced by 24.2% yielding a saving in running costs (including maintenance) of €140K per annum.
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Winner - St. James's Gate Brewery
Judges Comments
"Diageo installed a recirculation cooler using mains water to provide part of the process cooling water requirement as an alternative to using mechanical refrigeration. The project stemmed from the company IS393 Register of Opportunities identified by staff team members. This is an extremely well engineered project with detailed monitoring tracking savings over time. The project has reduced St. James's Gate Brewery's refrigeration demand by 1 GWh and 600 tonnes of CO2.
Project Description
St. James's Gate Brewery is the home of the Guinness stout brand and one of the largest breweries in Europe. It is a major production unit within the Supply side of the Diageo Group, the St James's Gate site is an historic, large and multi-functional site.
This project uses the natural cooling capability of brewing water to reduce the refrigeration requirement of the brewing process. This 'free' cooling from the cold water supply to the brewery is used to cool beer after the maturation process stage. The warmed water is then used for a variety of warm water duties in the brewing process, reducing the need to heat the water.
With a total peak cooling capacity of approximately 11MW for the site, electrical consumption for refrigeration is approximately 18% of site electrical use at 8.5GWh per year. The single largest cooling load for beer production is chilling post maturation, which represents an instantaneous cooling load of approximately 2.8MW. It was identified that this load could be moved from the use of expensive mechanical refrigeration to the use of 'free' cooling from brewing water and reduce electrical demand to refrigeration by 0.75GWh per annum. The preheating of process water has other benefits and reduces steam needed for process heating duties in water pasteurisation and the keg filling plant.
Savings for the first 12 months of operation were calculated to be a sustainable 1.34GWh per annum, which significantly exceeds the expectations of the project.
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