Green warehouses mean keen business

Green warehouses mean keen business

It’s not just transport operations that are feeling the effect of spiraling fuel prices. Warehouses and distribution centres, where the buck stops for keeping vital customer delivery promises, cost money for heating, lighting and for powering equipment. And increasingly tough EU led legislation is putting further pressure on companies to operate their premises in a more environmentally responsible manner. Steve Lamb from sbh looks at the issues and what you can do to reduce your carbon footprint and save money.

“The modern distribution centre servicing Internet and catalogue sales can consume a great deal of energy in ensuring that the delivery service matches customer expectations. Everyone thinks first about heating and lighting, but there are a great many other services that are just as important to the smooth running of any distribution centre. Materials handling equipment such as conveyors and lifts, IT order preparation and management systems, traction battery charging stations and security systems all depend on electricity – not forgetting vital catering and canteen facilities.

The demand for more energy-efficient warehouses has gone from being the exception to the norm over the past couple of years, with companies increasingly placing environmental issues and performance as key criteria. Our experience shows that there are three major driving forces behind this trend – the need to keep costs under control, market pressures and legislation. While the current economic environment is adding greater urgency to manage operating costs, there is little doubt that this will be a feature of business for years to come as the global economy struggles to adjust to rising demand. Add in EU legislation to encourage or even force companies to reduce their carbon footprint, and energy efficiency is certain to be high on the business agenda for the foreseeable future.

Building to save energy

For those planning a new distribution centre – or extending an existing facility – the opportunities to cut future energy costs are obviously greater than for existing occupiers. Modern construction and cladding materials have made great advances in insulation levels to ensure the minimum heat loss. Recent developments in building materials are making great strides in improving insulation levels, cutting significantly the amount of heat lost through the roof, walls and even the floor. The latest materials are able to achieve thermal conductivity levels as low as 0.021 W/mK and also Class 0 / Low Risk fire rating to the Building Regulations.

Constructing a warehouse with carefully sited rooflights is a simple way to provide additional free daylight, reducing the demand for electric lighting. Also a new building project allows the company more freedom to specify the most effective systems and technologies to control energy costs in the long term.


Existing buildings

For most occupiers however the key question is what can be done to control costs today and in the immediate future. The first stage of any strategy should be to reduce or eliminate wastage, and there is a great deal in most businesses. This is a matter of both using modern technology and putting in place sound management disciplines. Encouraging staff to turn lights and equipment off when not required, making sure all exterior doors and other have automatic closures to stop heat escaping and other simple steps need not cost anything, but can make a significant difference.

Established technologies such as daylight dimming or motion detectors can be installed to ensure that lights only operate when needed, which in many cases is only a fraction of the time they would normally be on.

However the most significant savings will come from the use of established Building Management Systems (BMS) technology, which can be designed to monitor and control almost every energy-consuming device on the premises. BMSs are able to control and monitor the building’s mechanical and electrical equipment such as air handling and cooling plant systems, lighting, power systems, fire and security systems.

As well as providing invaluable and detailed information on all systems that will help management understand better just where costs are occuring, the BMS can control and activate functions in a variety of ways to further cut costs. Time based controls ensure that heating, lighting and other services are only activated when required, and using optimising parameters, operating services at the minimum level to meet a specified need. As examples, BMSs can control flow temperature in the heating circuit relative to external temperature: operate thermostatic radiator valves that sense space temperature in a room and control the flow accordingly; and use occupancy sensing passive infra-red sensors to only activate services when movement is detected.
Light relief

According to Richard Sweet from warehousing Mechanical and Electrical Services specialist PWP, selecting the most suitable lighting can bring savings of as much as 80% of overall site electricity consumption, and can provide capital and installation payback of 12-24 months, compared to a facility with no automatic controls. He commented: “Although more expensive to start with, some of the largest savings are made from applying motion and dimming controls to individual fittings. In most warehouses light is only needed some of the time in areas of activity. An operator – either on foot or on a fork truck may only travel a few yards down the aisle so why light up the whole length? It’s easy to replace a standard SON (Sodium) fitting in the high bay and low bay with a fluorescent light with a built-in photocell, microwave and dimmers (dimming solves the problem of excessive restriking, which reduces lamp life). The combined performance is ideal for today’s big sheds.”

New technologies

There are a number of new and emerging technologies that industry is being urged to adopt. However while their ability to reduce or even eliminate energy costs is not in doubt, their high capital cost and long payback period has up to now been a deterrent. But with fuel costs set to rise beyond inflation into the forseeable future, their appeal will increase as payback periods shorten.

Combined Heat and Power (CHP) has been widely used for housing since the 1980s but has made few inroads into the commercial sector. However a CHP system has recently been selected to heat the London Olympic Park and is now powering Waitrose’s recently opened Rickmansworth store, showing that it has a stronger case to offer to industry and distribution in today’s economic climate.

The Waitrose store is even being heated by materials from two local tomato farms, a fine example of resourceful thinking. CHP systems have been operating successfully in mainland Europe and Scandinavia for decades, and while the UK has been slow to adopt such systems, the time for CHP may now have arrived.


Solar Energy systems have been widely promoted for heating and hot water systems but high capital costs and lengthy payback periods have deterred many would-be converts. However rising fuel costs may well shorten the amortization timescale to one more acceptable to businesses, and with possibly warmer, sunnier summers, solar energy systems now merit far closer attention.

The use of ground heat pumps is a more recent concept that uses a buried loop to provide heat from the ground. This technology may well be more suited to warehousing than to many other sectors, as it requires a large area of ground to deliver maximum potential, which most warehouses and parking areas have in abundance.

Increasing legislation

The past couple of years have seen a flurry of EU-driven building legislation such as Part L2A to the Building Regulations “Conservation of fuel and power in buildings other than dwellings” which came into effect in April 2006. Other more stringent requirements are in the pipeline and they will ensure that Local Government planners will impose higher standards to reflect current and anticipated regulations to reduce their local carbon footprint.


As an example of the effect legislation may have, sbh was recently involved in a project for an existing client – a leading European distributor of paper, packaging and promotional products – who was planning to extend the existing warehouse and office premises. As the current building covered more than 1,000m², the Building Regulations 2000, Part 2LB, required the client to ensure that both the extension and the current facility comply with the latest energy efficiency requirements under the Act.

A survey in line with CIBSE (Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers) and Building Regulations revealed immediate opportunities to make major savings with minimal expenditure. The latest software to update their existing BMS was available on free download and a system upgrade including a new PC meant that the BMS would be able to carry out its original mission for both the existing premises and the planned extension. The total investment including staff training amounted to no more than a few hundred pounds – a pittance against the expected energy savings from a more efficient BMS of up to £30,000 pa.

This is an encouraging example of the type of immediate savings that can be made using outside expertise and experience from a consultancy such as sbh. And as world oil prices seem to be settled at above $140 a barrel, the potential savings – or penalties – can only increase in the coming years.”

July - 2008