Energy and carbon reductions

Kingspan’s new sustainable Energi Centre in Holywell is a show piece of energy efficiency. It is constructed primarily with products from the Kingspan range including:

• Insulated Panels - on the roof and walls, providing maximum insulation and air-tightness in a completely fibre free environment without any degradation of the insulation effectiveness during the life of the building.
• Solar Heating System - Thermomax vacuum tubes from Kingspan Renewables are mounted on the roof. The solar generated heat is transferred via a heat exchanger coil into the buildings hot water system, which is used to heat the gas fired hot water generator. This ensures that hot water is available at all times at the lowest cost and minimum carbon emissions.
• Rainwater Recovery Technology - from Kingspan’s Environmental range. A 10,000 litre underground tank collects rainwater from the Kingspan roof drainage system. The tank incorporates a low energy pump to raise the collected water to a water storage tank from where it is distributed for use in the building.
• Solar Photovoltaic Panels - from Kingspan. - Ten photovoltaic panels with peak output of 210 watts have been installed on the Kingspan roof and are connected to the national grid.
• Access Floors - from Kingspan Access Floors have been installed throughout the building. These floors facilitate underfloor air conditioning which is significantly cheaper to run and creates a healthier environment than overhead systems as well as facilitating the cable management for the whole building.
• Kooltherm® - pipe and ducting insulation from Kingspan Insulation was used throughout. This provides totally fibre free insulation to the pipework and ducting to create a healthy environment for staff and of course the insulation will be effective for the life of the building.

These integrated products from Kingspan, together with photo-dimmer lighting, an iskra 5kW wind turbine and treble glazing, put the building at the leading edge of energy efficiency.

The use of natural light in buildings is important to reduce consumption of electricity on artificial lighting. Following successful lighting trials in one of our facility warehouses, Kingspan upgraded the lighting across that whole site through retrofitting of energy efficient lighting and installation of Kingspan roof/wall translucent lights. All existing skylights in the related production areas have been replaced with energy efficient Kingspan translucents. This has generated significant energy saving through reduced artificial light, reduced energy from the light used, and reduced heat loss in the building.

Kingspan has also worked closely with the Carbon Trust to assess the potential for energy/carbon reductions across its manufacturing plants. For example carrying out the recommendations of its compressed air survey has resulted in significant energy savings, amounting to approximately 120 tonnes of CO₂ emissions in one plant alone. Other projects involved restructuring heating and lighting systems, e.g. switching to energy-saving lighting is expected to save approximately 430 tonnes of CO₂ emissions.

New energy monitoring systems have been installed across several locations for gas and power, with increased use of sub metering to monitor consumption in production areas. Improved controls have also been implemented for the largest energy loads on these sites.

The above Insulated Panels figures are an average from the three manufacturing plants in the U.K and Ireland and show a reduction of 2.7% in direct energy consumption and 7.8% indirect compared to 2006.

The above Insulated Boards figures show indirect and direct energy consumption in its main manufacturing site in Pembridge in 2007, with targeted reduction of 5% in 2008.

For the three Insulated Panels manufacturing sites in the UK and Ireland the CO₂ emissions, calculated using the latest government conversion factors, was 8,387 tonnes in 2007 compared to 7,945 tonnes in 2006 an increase of 5.5%. Given that production increased by over 10% during the same period, there was an effective reduction of approximately 350 tonnes.

For the main Insulation Boards manufacturing site at Pembridge the CO₂ emissions in 2007 was 9,690 tonnes compared to 8,273 in 2006, an increase of 17%. Given that production increased by 19% at this site during the same period, this gives an effective saving of approximately 150 tonnes.

It is Kingspan’s policy to progressively refurbish its older buildings to what is expected to be the standards required by the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive in 2015, and any of our new buildings will be designed and built to these standards.

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