Schools benefit from SPIE’s Energy Management initiatives – saving over £1 million in energy costs during first four years.
SPIE UK is delivering a high quality Facilities Maintenance (FM) service to over 70 schools in the UK across numerous private finance initiative (PFI) contracts. Located in the catchment areas of Scotland, Liverpool, Wirral, Salford, Manchester, Halton and Kirklees, West Yorkshire, these schools feature a range of facilities with energy management and improvement a priority. Already in the fifth year of 25-year term contracts, SPIE has saved many of these schools over £1 million in energy costs. These savings can be attributed to a bespoke, remotely managed energy monitoring and Building Management System (BMS).
SPIE combines energy performance and system controls, delivering a proactive approach that’s co-ordinated with our central team of engineering and energy experts. This expertise supports our operational teams at each facility, with Facilities Management (FM) services extending right across these diverse contracts – often covering infrastructure and asset management including caretakers, swimming pools, engineering systems, energy monitoring and building management systems. Our engineers work alongside a central team of energy experts to provide clients with proactive energy specialists who carry out daily checks, adjustments and problem solving across many of the school buildings. This information is then used to change or modify system operations accordingly to improve building energy performance, whilst also setting targets for future improvements.
Moreover, by closely aligning energy monitoring with BMS operations, our team can log performance, establish trends and quickly identify any operational issues that need to be resolved.
Many of the PFI school contracts also feature a range of performance management reporting and benchmarking tasks, carried out by our Central Engineering Team, working closely with our local maintenance teams. These include water consumption data collection, energy and water use analysis, weather monitoring, target setting, meter reading and ‘in use’ analysis reconciliation, as well as BMS monitoring & scheduling, plus site visits for audits and reviews of systems and buildings.
Sustainability-related benefits are being delivered across these PFI contracts, with improvement plans resulting. One contract in particular, representing eight high schools and a primary school, has saved 384 tonnes of CO2 over a two-year period (2012-14). This is the equivalent of a standard car driving nearly 900,000 miles.
There’s so much more that has yet to be achieved, including better connectivity to off-site monitoring, integration of expertise and reinvesting energy savings into new facilities. Our latest innovation features a plant refurbishment service that will improve life cycles, increase efficiency and minimise cost/operational disruption.
