One of the world’s largest management consulting, outsourcing, technology and professional services companies, Capgemini, has installed a Trend Energy Manager system to help the company achieve a 20% energy saving by 2014.
Capgemini takes its environmental and corporate social responsibilities very seriously and has defined and implemented a range of measures designed to minimise its carbon footprint. As well as being certified to EMAS and ISO 14001, it leads by example and has set a target of achieving a 20% energy reduction target by 2014 from its 2008 levels.
As part of this programme the company appointed Craig Hall as its UK Energy efficiency manager, he says: “Capgemini Group spends in the region of €40m a year on utilities and 70% of our electricity usage is linked to our data centres, in which we host the IT equipment of our clients. One of my first tasks when joining the company was to devise a strategy that would reduce the amount of energy consumed within the 14 Capgemini locations in the UK.”
Energy management
Although the company already had a building management system (BMS) in place, it relied heavily on human interaction to ensure that energy use was being correctly controlled. In addition, with no monitoring facility available it was very difficult to see exactly how much energy was being used.
Craig Hall says: “We needed a tool that could monitor and diagnose energy patterns and use. I’ve worked with Trend in the past and after our initial meeting, it was clear that Trend Energy Manager would help facilitate enhanced interaction and achieve better results.”
Trend Energy Manager is a powerful software based system that can be used to monitor energy use within a building. Energy and facilities managers (FMs) can use it to keep a close eye on the gas and electricity consumed by their building services and the effect it has on their carbon footprint. Meter readings and other Trend BEMS variables that are logged and automatically uploaded are its main source of data and it provides rapid reporting of incidences of energy overuse or indeed issues with the plant which is monitored. It can even be configured to suggest probable causes, which FMs can then act upon.
It is also a highly flexible solution. Dave Field, Product Manager for Trend Controls says: “Trend Energy Manager can be scaled to suit the size of application and it is a viable proposition for relatively small single buildings as well as large campuses and nationwide estates. As a web-based package it can be accessed by authorised users from virtually any location, via the Internet or an organisation’s Intranet.”
Compare results
To gain a better understanding of how energy is being used in Capgemini’s UK buildings, Hall and his team have entered into their Trend Energy Manager a variety of information such as utility tariffs, CO2 factor and cost and consumption targets. Normalisation criteria are also specified to allow comparisons between different areas within a building or different buildings, or to benchmark consumption against specific targets. Degree day data is also called up and entered to allow for differences in weather conditions when comparing the current year’s energy consumption with that of a previous year.
The team of internal FMs now use the data to understand and react to the real-time energy profile of their buildings. This data can be manipulated and combined in a variety of ways and is presented in simple to understand graphical and tabular formats.
Capgemini’s UK energy reduction strategy is already seeing success and the company has managed an impressive 16.7% energy reduction over 2011 – equating to a massive £250,000 in savings. Craig Hall concludes: “I’m delighted with what we have achieved so far and we will strive to better this during 2012. The Trend Energy Manager plays a key role in our efforts to reduce energy consumption and brings our entire energy reduction agenda to life.”