Achieved savings
As a result of the review by a local ENWORKS adviser from the Cumbria Business Environment Network (CBEN), savings of £20,200 a year have already been achieved by Mawsons, through a variety of improvement actions.
The adviser helped the family to secure a Carbon Trust loan to drill a borehole on site. Fresh groundwater can now be drawn into the dairy to cool milk more efficiently, without using power-hungry chilling equipment.
The system has saved over 12,000 m3 of mains water per year, bringing annual savings of £17,100 to the business, together with associated annual carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) savings of 3.3 tonnes. It is also expected to save a further £5,200 a year in electricity bills.
From an energy efficiency perspective £2,400 a year has also been saved by using energy-efficient light bulbs throughout the hotel. This has helped to save 32,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, as well as 17.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) a year, with only a nominal capital investment.
A further £690 a year is now being saved by segregating and bailing different waste types prior to collection, such as cardboard and plastics. This allows the sites’ waste contractors to stop 10 tonnes of waste going to landfill each year, with a total of 16 tonnes saved so far.
In the pipeline
Work is still underway to realise an additional £98,200 of identified annual cost savings.
A new grant application has been submitted for a heat recovery system that would capture waste heat from the dairy’s refrigeration systems and convert it into hot water to feed the site’s existing hot water system. It could reduce annual fuel oil consumption by 8,300 litres and ultimately save the business £4,600 in costs and 26.7 tonnes of CO2e, per year.
Other opportunities include zoning the existing heating systems to reduce gas consumption by 55,500 kWh a year. By making sure the heating is only switched on in areas where it is needed the family could cut its energy bills by £1,600 a year, after a payback period of less than two years.
Research is also being carried out into a wind turbine to power the milk processing equipment in the dairy. It is estimated that this could save £9,000 a year in energy bills, with additional financial support from the Government’s Feed-in Tariff scheme.
Case study published on 30 June 2011
