Savings fit for a King!

With the help of a £1,000 grant from the Energy Efficient East Sussex Programme, King & McGaw installed plastic strip curtains to reduce heat loss through large warehouse doors which regularly need to be opened and closed throughout the day.

Coupled with fitting thermostatic controls to the oil-fired warm-air heating system and setting the temperature to a maximum 20ºC, a 2,500 litre reduction in annual oil consumption has been achieved.

This saved the company, which handmakes art prints and frames, £702 in 2015/16 in comparison to the previous year, despite average oil prices increasing by 23%.

The project was led by Productions & Operations Manager Steve McNealy alongside other quick-win energy efficiency measures.

Steve explained, “Equipment is regularly checked and maintained. Recently we replaced a number of joints and fittings of the compressed air system to eliminate air-leakage.”

Over a ten year lifecycle the cost of the energy used by a compressed air system is typically three times that of its purchase, installation and maintenance.

Maximising running efficiency is therefore vital; small improvements can result in worthwhile savings.

Steve continued, “We’ve also replaced five ageing dust extractors with a single more efficient unit and as fluorescent lights fail we upgrade them to LEDs.”

“I’d love to install LEDs throughout, but must wait until budget is available. In the meantime I have removed two of the four fluorescent tubes in each of the rectangular ceiling fittings in the office – it has halved energy usage and improved what was an excessively lit environment!”

Steve is currently investigating which areas would benefit from automatic lighting controls. In the staff diner for example, he’s found that the room is typically lit all day, despite only being in use for around 1.5 hours at lunch time. PIR motion sensors will save around 4,950 kWh and £594 per year.

Energy Efficient East Sussex helped SMEs reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by over 150 tonnes. It was funded by East Sussex County Council and delivered by the Sustainable Business Partnership CIC.

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