ESOS Deadline Looming

ESOS is the UK Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme. The mandatory energy assessment scheme applies to any UK company that has 250 or more employees, or has an annual turnover of more than €50 million. All organisations that qualify must carry out their first ESOS assessment by 5th December 2015. This assessment will have to be repeated every four years.

Qualifying companies will need to measure total energy consumption of their buildings, industrial processes and transport. Areas that use significant amounts of energy must be identified. Companies will then be expected to detail energy-saving solutions that could be implemented, to reduce their overall energy usage. Once the assessment has been carried out the Environment Agency must be notified of a company’s compliance.

If a company already has an ISO 50001 Energy Management System that covers their entire energy usage, then they may not be required to carry out an ESOS assessment.
The purpose of the scheme is to help companies assess their energy consumption, and identify ways to save energy. The choice of whether to implement these changes is left with the organisation. Once energy-saving opportunities have been identified however, it seems logical to implement at least some of the solutions. Any energy-saving measures implemented will naturally result in cost savings.

Although not the biggest offender, lighting does account for up to 40% of a building’s electricity usage*. One relatively simple way to cut down on usage is to install lighting controls. Up to 70% of the energy used by lighting can be saved in this way.

Flex Connectors have a number of options available to help cut down on your energy costs:

Our absence controls work by turning lights off in a room once it has been vacant for a set period of time. The timeout period is factory set to 20 minutes, but can be reprogrammed by the user with a flex7 Setup Remote Control.

Our occupancy controls automatically turns lights on when someone enters a room, then turn them off once a room has been vacant for a set period of time. The timeout period is factory set to 20 minutes, but can be programmed by the user with a flex7 Setup Remote Control.

Our daylight dependent controls take advantage of natural daylight in a room or space. They automatically switch lights off whenever natural daylight in a room is adequate. Users can set the light level that they wish to maintain using a flex7 Setup Remote Control.

Daylight linking controls are available with occupancy sensing.

Our daylight linking controls take advantage of natural daylight in a room or space. They automatically adjust the artificial light levels in a room depending on the natural daylight available. Lights will dim down if natural daylight increases, which prevents unnecessary use of energy. Users can set the light level that they wish to maintain using a flex7 Setup Remote Control.

Daylight linking controls are available with absence or occupancy sensing.

Further information on ESOS can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/energy-savings-opportunity-scheme-esos

*Information sourced from: https://www.carbontrust.com/media/31642/ctl161_how_to_implement_lighting_controls.pdf