It takes a lot of energy to maintain comfortable environments for the millions of student rooms across the country and there’s great pressure on providers to meet net-zero and decarbonisation targets is immense. The “burning issue” is that generally, the people consuming the energy are not directly responsible for paying the bill. For energy managers this is frustrating, to say the least. The budget for energy use is their responsibility but they have no control over consumption. I was particularly excited a few weeks ago, when a customer, the University of West England, shared with me data showing energy use from 2017 up to present day. It was interesting because UWE had installed a Building Energy Management System during the pandemic. The reason for my excitement is that it showed ‘before and after data’ which is very difficult to come by as a third party. The figures told a predictable story of month-on-month energy savings. But I took a three-year average consumption, 2017-2019, to mitigate for unusual weather peaks and troughs, then compared this with 2022, (ignoring 2021 as it was disrupted by lockdowns and unusual occupancy patterns). The total reduction is 22%. Pre-installation 2018/19 the heating of rooms across the site consumed almost 4.1Million kWh of electricity. The same period 2022/23 saw this reduced to just over 3.2Million kWh – a 22% reduction. With increased energy costs, this demonstrates a comparative saving of over £106K per year.

Project this forward to the coming year, with a tariff of 16.5 pence per kWh, and this amounts to £147,819. The surprising element that emerged from this complete dataset was what happened in the non-heating season, specifically May through August. During this four-month period, the weather is warmer, and less heating is required. The occupation of rooms is greatly reduced due to the summer holidays and a lot of rooms being empty for most of June- September. A reduction in use of 67,779kWh was recorded, which at our customers current tariff amounts to just over £11,000. University of the West of England (UWE) installed Prefect’s Irus system throughout its 1900+ rooms at the Frenchay Campus in Bristol three years ago, replacing local controls that had been in place since Prefect installed them when the site was built in 2006. Melissa Clarke, Energy Projects Manager, was tasked with delivering the new system. She comments: “The installation went surprisingly well, considering the circumstances of working around lockdowns and ensuring the safety of any students on site and the contractors”.

The Irus system works on the basis that the Setback temperature maintains a comfortable environment while occupants are in their room. But, when the room is vacant or windows are opened, heat input is reduced. Students can boost their room’s temperature, but the profiles, that are set via the internet portal, will return the room to the Setback temperature after a pre-determined time. This ensures the thermostat cannot be turned to ‘max’ and left there all term! Melissa concludes: “We are very happy with the results we are seeing here and are extending the system into a new development that is currently under construction. The use of Mains Borne Signalling for communication between the room control units and the portal means it is very easy and cost-effective to add rooms without the expense of extensive data cabling. The system simply uses the Earth and Neutral of the existing electrical wiring to transmit data.” While most attention is rightly focussed on the autumn and winter seasons, it pays dividends to be aware of unnecessary energy use during warmer months. Having a centrally controlled system that is easy to universally adjust, summer profiles can be tweaked, resulting in even greater savings.

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