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Jaguar Land Rover

Jaguar Land Rover on Trend with huge energy savings thanks to building energy management system (BEMS)

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Jaguar Land Rover on Trend with huge energy savings thanks to BEMS

The car manufacturer’s 900-acre Gaydon site offers many energy efficiency challenges. But with a well-performing building energy management system (BEMS) at its heart, things are under control.

Jaguar Land Rover Gaydon

As two of the greatest British vehicle brands, the names Jaguar and Land Rover are synonymous with quality and prestige. Indian automotive giant, Tata Motors, bought the Warwickshire-based business for £1.5bn in 2008 and since then Jaguar Land Rover has gone from strength to strength. The firm reported a 30% increase in global sales last year, selling over 350,000 vehicles to more than 170 different markets, with profits of £1.67bn.

The 900-acre Jaguar Land Rover Gaydon Centre is one of the company’s advanced engineering centres. The site, previously RAF Gaydon, now houses a design, research and development centre which employs more than 4,000 people, as well as extensive test track facilities.

The car maker’s sustainable development policy is embedded at every level of the organization, with a full 360-degree approach across the lifecycle of its products and operations. In the last five years the company has made significant achievements against its ambitious goals including a 21% reduction in operational CO2 emissions since 2007, despite significant project work to extend its facilities.

Management decision

A contributing factor in Jaguar Land Rover’s achievements in this area is the use of a building energy management system (BEMS) at Gaydon, from Trend Control Systems. During the five-year period up to 2012, the BEMS delivered considerable cost savings – the equivalent of 4,271,544kWh and 1,674 tonnes of CO2. To put this into perspective, these quantified CO2 savings are equivalent to providing lighting for 4,082 houses carbon free for a year.

A BEMS offers greater visibility and control of energy use and a fully integrated solution can have up to 84% of a building’s energy-consuming devices directly under its control. The data it produces allows facilities managers to better analyse, understand, reconfigure and improve their site's energy usage and costs, by having them presented in an organised and informative way.

A BEMS offers greater visibility and can have up to 84% of a building’s energy-consuming devices under its control “Our challenge is to make sure that the BEMS is working effectively and controlling the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) facility at Gaydon as efficiently as possible,” says Andrew Bilbrough, service manager at Trend.

“We operate a comprehensive service level agreement (SLA) to make sure that the BEMS is correctly maintained, while providing those on-site with comfortable working environments. As part of the SLA we also run a condition-based maintenance regime, as well as implementing quick-win control strategy modifications for the BEMS using existing hardware.

“Throughout the period 2008 to 2012, we were able to demonstrate significant savings by putting energy at the core of our maintenance activities. This resulted in carbon savings equivalent to the production and delivery of 50 of the highest spec Land Rover Discovery vehicles.

Savings above and beyond

The nature of the partnership between JLR and Trend means that there is a built-in ability to go beyond simply fulfilling the requirements of the SLA.

Neil Hyatt, Trend’s energy engineer based at Gaydon identifies and recommends additional projects that fall outside the scope of routine maintenance tasks. “This is an enormous operation with 26 BEMS enabled buildings,” he says. “By identifying energy saving opportunities that can make a significant ROI, I can make a proposal to the facilities and site services team at JLR.”

Over time this strategy has made a huge difference and through measures such as the introduction of variable speed drives and Trend IQ controllers, aligning lighting time zones with occupancy patterns, using time clocks and control strategy re-designs, a total of 3,476,742 kWh and 1,291 tonnes of CO2 has been saved.

Watchful eye

The types of buildings where savings have been achieved are diverse and include offices, workshops and research laboratories.

While each building is managed separately and has its own energy reduction targets, operational and energy meter data is monitored from a central location via a Trend 963 Supervisor – a graphical, real-time user interface. It acts as a window to the BEMS and allows Hyatt and any other permitted personnel to directly interface with it.

Security settings ensure that each user is only presented with information and functions that are relevant to their authority or task, and the software learns the structure of the system so that it can make adjustments to how the building services are configured.

Complementing the 963 Supervisor is a Trend Energy Manager, a software-based tool that is used for highlighting and investigating energy use.

It enables designated administrators to keep a close eye on the gas and electricity consumed by the building services and the overall effect this has on JLR’s carbon footprint. It also allows the application of specific calculations and analysis in reports that contain observations, advice, proposals and performance graphs that will help optimise energy consumption throughout the site.

The BEMS is constantly evolving to ensure that buildings are fully optimised for user comfort and energy efficiency. “When a BEMS is first commissioned it is configured around existing layouts and occupancy patterns,” adds Hyatt. “These can change over time and incorrectly configured time clocks and set-points, conflicting heating and cooling, incorrectly calibrated control loops, valves, actuators and sensors, new layouts and repartitioning, and the addition or relocation of equipment – can all have a detrimental effect on energy consumption.”

Think big

A correctly-optimised BEMS ensures that building services operate in strict accordance with demand, thereby avoiding unnecessary use of energy, while making the technology work much harder and increasing ROI.

Trend and JLR conduct an annual review of the SLA to ensure it meets the requirements of the changing demands of a site which has seen construction of new buildings and refurbishment of existing facilities.

This is in addition to operational reviews to discuss the projects undertaken and their impact on energy reduction and importantly to establish what more can be done.