Government departments were able to achieve significant energy savings in their HQ buildings over the festive period with MoD and DCMS managing to achieve savings of over 40%. Overall, the HQ buildings managed to reduce their combined energy consumption by 30%.
Before Christmas, government departments were asked to use the minimum amount of energy possible from Christmas Day to New Year’s Eve. Specifically, departments were asked to make sure they were:
- Minimising unnecessary lighting and heating (especially when buildings are closed)
- Heating and central operating plant adjusted so they don’t fire automatically on the morning on 27th December
- Staff encouraged to switch off monitors and unplug equipment before their departure on Christmas leave
- When buildings re-open but have limited occupancy over the holiday period, making an effort to minimise building use eg by encouraging staff to sit together so that some floors of the building need not be reopened.
This blog compares the 7 day period from Christmas day to New Year’s Eve with the 7 day period 11/12/10 – 17/12/10 (we have not used the week 18/12/10 – 24/12/10 as a comparator because staff would be beginning to take leave in line with school holidays) to examine how well departments have risen to the challenge.
The following chart shows a comparison of the energy consumption for the period 25/12/10 – 31/12/10 compared to period 11/12/10 – 17/12/10:
DfE did not report an energy saving and have informed us that this was due to contractor error which led to the time clocks on some programmable building management systems not being correctly set. DfE are reviewing protocols and training for the setting of their building management systems, and instigating remote monitoring capability to ensure this does not happen again.
2 comments
Comment by Anonymous posted on
Just what is this posting supposed to show?
Is it indicating that members of the civil service were turning off lights and reducing heating? Or does it indicate that the MOD took a holiday; I mean Christmas to New Year? It also mentions that turning off lights "even in building that were unoccupied" would be wise!
Is it indicating that over the last 12 month energy reducing initiatives were undertaken so that less energy is used?
It also indicates that the DfE Increased their energy consumption, but with some 'cock and bull' explanations about time clocks.
All in all this is just a fake headline to make it appear that the waste and inefficiency is being challenged.
I also guess that the two period in question were the only ones to show some sort of positive statistic that the blog owner could crow about.
In reality I would think given all things being equal and comparing to say, similar buildings in the private sector that a useful 12 month study could actually have been conducted. And maybe it was!
As I say rubbish in gives rubbish out. This headline is not worth the page its written on
Comment by Anonymous posted on
Achieving efficiencies in goverment sector is impossible. Though they do try to masquerade as being as efficient as the private companies. It all boils down to the bottomline. And the bottomline is the government doesn't have to try hard to earn money. They just to have increase the taxes. guess who pays for it. The poor taxpayer. Meanwhile the government publishes some rubbish data about 30 percent energy saving over Christmas!! What about better initiatives for alternative energy sources like home solar energy, wind energy, geo thermal energy?