Page 24 - PWM_NOVEMBER2021 EBook

BETTER BUSINESS

De-energise

yourself

This autumn’s energy crises have included rocketing
gas prices and a broken cross-channel electricity
cable. The inevitably higher electricity prices will be
concentrating print factory owners’ minds even if
they don’t notice what will be said at COP26.
Addressing the global climate crisis is a noble long-
term goal, but higher energy bills need paying
today, by Simon Eccles
nitially, you can play musical LED is equivalent to a 70W tube.
chairs with energy suppliers if Purpose-built-LED battens however,
you’re not locked into long- as swap-out tube replacements tend
term contracts. To brighten up to be dimmer. Lifetimes are between
a boring exercise, ask those 30,000 to 70,000 hours depending
Ithat boast they only use on who you believe, equivalent to
renewables if they’ll guarantee their between 15 and 34 years for single-
prices won’t go up because of gas cost shift, five-day weeks.
rises.
Another electricity saving can
It’s also a no-brainer to consider come from installing room sensors
how to optimise and reduce a that switch lights on when people
factory’s energy consumption, with enter and off or dim when they leave.
measures that work in the short This works well for storerooms,
term, as well as longer range restrooms, toilets, corridors and
planning for new equipment and maybe offices, but isn’t practical for
new or modified buildings. This is production floors. which has information and links online, reckons that fitting a typical
also a major factor in limiting your factory heat recovery system would cost from £8,000 to £12,000.
carbon footprint, which some Retain and recycle heat According to the Carbon Trust, a heat recovery ventilation system
customers will ask about. operating at average 70% efficiency will save about 38% of a company’s gas
All electrical machinery, heat driers heating bill, with a return on investment over two years.
Light work and people in a factory give off heat.
The age of the building will tend to Fusion source
An obvious way to cut energy use determine how draft-proof and well
immediately is to replace insulated it is and thus how much By 2019 photovoltaic (PV) solar panel arrays generated 2.7% of the world’s
incandescent bulbs, “energy savers” builds up inside, or is lost through electricity, a growth of 24% over a single year. As a global average, utility-
or halogen with LEDs. An LED uses single-glazed windows, uninsulated scale solar costs dropped by about 14% from 2017-18, according to
about a 10th of the power of an roofs and walls and open loading researcher Lazard, then by a further 7% in 2019-20 according to the
equivalent-brightness incandescent doors without heat-retaining International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena).
bulb, 12% of a halogen or about 60% curtains. Our ever-hotter summers
of a CFL ‘energy saver’. LED prices might demand air conditioning. Print factories are often single-story with large roof areas suited to
have plummeted in recent years and mounting solar arrays. Whether this can supply all of a factory’s needs
a range of colour temperatures are Factory heat recovery and depends on the total area installed, but significant contributions are
offered. It’s so obvious however that a exchange systems can be installed to certainly possible even on cloudy days in the UK. Given the rising PV
lot of factories will have done it recycle excess heat into water tanks efficiencies promised in future, you need to do your sums before entering
already, often replacing older type and radiators, with prices depending into any long-term payment contracts.
bulbs on a rolling basis as they fail. on the size and complexity of the fit.
There’s a fairly wide choice of Excess power generated at idle times, such as weekends, can be fed into
Replacing fluorescent tubes has technologies, not just the heat pumps the public grid and sold back to the energy companies. Unfortunately the
been slower to take off because they that are somewhat controversially UK government keeps changing its rules on this. It closed its original
are pretty efficient anyway. Even so favoured by the government for ‘feed-in tariff’ scheme (paying 5.38p per kWh) to new entrants in 2019.
each LED array uses about 40% of domestic use. However, it then introduced the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG). This
the energy of an equivalent requires all energy companies with 150,000-plus customers to provide at
fluorescent tube, so a 150cm 24W The Renewable Energy Hub, least one SEG tariff for selling electricity to the grid. Energy companies can

24 PrintWeek MENA November 2021 www.printweekmena.com