Hampshire County Council
Schools Forum
Item 5
11 December 2009
Carbon Reduction and Smart Meters - Update
Report of the Director Property Business, Regulatory and IT Services
(PBRITS)
Contact: Steve Clow
01962 847858
email: steve.clow@hants.gov.uk
Contact: Steve Hall
01962 847771
email: steve.hall@hants.gov.uk
1.
1.1.
Summary
This report proposes that the Schools Forum agree to carry forward £900,000 of
the £1 million contribution to Smart Metering of schools from 2009/10 into
2010/11. The £100,000 will be spent this financial year.
1.2.
It is recommended that this contribution is used to support the delivery of
Principal Site Metering; fund new staff resources to support schools energy
savings (and therefore cost reductions) and commence the installation
programme of secondary meters on campus sites with more than one building.
1.3.
Since Schools Forum approved this contribution, the Director of PBRITS has
secured a commitment from utility providers to install principal site smart
meters at no cost to the Schools and commencing some years before they are
required to do so by law. This means that the schools contribution could now be
used to undertake the next stage of meter installation much earlier than originally
planned and support the strategy to delivery Carbon Reductions and fuel cost
savings. This will add significant value to the programme and make a major
contribution to deliver earlier energy reductions.
1.4.
This next phase will consist of sub-meters on campus sites to monitor separate
buildings; this would be prioritised to large buildings over 1,000m² including
sites with, for example, shared infant/junior schools, secondary schools and
special schools.
2.
2.1
Introduction
In December 2008 Schools Forum agreed to set aside £1m from their budget to
commence the smart meter installation programme in schools. The Schools
Forum recognised accurate metering and recording of data is important, not only
for billing purposes but also in respect of the Carbon Reduction Commitment.
2.2
Smart metering, also known as Automated Meter Reading (AMR), of the main
utility supplies (electricity, gas and water) to a school allows remote access,
generally via web pages, to the meter readings. This avoids the need to manually
read meters at regular intervals and allows fine grained analysis of energy
consumptions.
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2.3
The Schools Forum, in providing £1m recognised AMR is becoming
increasingly important to enable compliance with legislation and provide local
management information to the building managers to enable active reduction in
consumption, investigate over consumption and provide synchronised readings
of energy consumptions.
2.4
Making energy data accessible more widely to those who have responsibility for
managing energy in a school, can make a real difference to the amount of energy
used. The Carbon Trust suggests savings of 5 -12% are realistic, if the
consumption readings are acted on locally and payback times of around a year are
possible. In the context of a total annual energy bill for schools approaching
£10m per annum this could represent a saving of £500,000 to £1.2m a year.
2.5
It should be noted that the total schools’ carbon footprint has increased by 10%
over the last two years.
3.
3.1.
Details of the existing Infrastructure
School sites with electricity loads over 110kVA (100kW) already have mandatory
half hourly meters (MHH) fitted that provide fine grained analysis of the
electricity usage and accurate billing.
3.2.
The remainder of the sites rely on cyclic meter reading, for gas, water and the
remaining electricity supplies, generally by the utility company. Occasional
customer reads, made by the schools themselves, can also be used to generate the
utility bill. The utility suppliers also use estimated readings to generate bills
throughout the year.
3.3.
With the exception of existing MHH electricity metering, no centralised system
of automatic collection of data or reporting is currently available. Energy
reporting is carried out from the SAP billing records, analysed using Excel
software. These records include any estimated readings rather than actual meter
readings compiled by the utility companies.
4.
4.1.
Scope of the Smart Meter Roll out Project
The original proposal put to the Schools Forum in 2008 was to use the £1m to
purchase or lease principal gas and electricity meters and install them on the
incoming services to each school. However, since this proposal was tabled two
major legislative changes have been made:
4.2.

Government have mandated all energy suppliers to install their own
smart primary meters (also known as Automated Meter Reading or AMR)
for all sites by 2015.

Display Energy Certificates (DEC) for campus sites are no longer allowed
– each building over 1000m2 must have an individual DEC
As a result of this change, PBRITS have, over the last 8 months, been in
discussion with the schools’ energy suppliers to determine how, at what cost and
over what timescale they propose to roll out their smart meter programme for
the County Council estate.
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4.3.
nPower (electricity) and British Gas (gas and electricity) have confirmed there will
be no capital charge for changing any meters to AMR meters, however there will
be an increase in the annual standing charge for an AMR meter of approx. £60 £100 p.a. per meter. This is not significant in proportion to the total cost of
energy for schools (approaching £10 million).
4.4.
As the principal meters would be installed by the utility companies at no capital
cost to the schools a revised AMR roll out is being considered.
4.5.
The proposal is to install a system of automated meter reading (AMR) for the
main site incoming utilities for each school (by the utility company) and to follow
this with the installation of sub metering, on the following basis.
4.6.
Phase 1
Principal Utility Meters
(DEC, CRC & NI185 requirement)
Phase 2
Sub-meters to buildings over 1000m²
(DEC requirement)
Phase 3
Sub-meter to all buildings (Buildings over 250m²)
Phase 4
Sub-meters to distribution boards
(Separate meters for lighting and power)
The proposed works comprise four phases, with phase 1 providing the
following:

Modification or replacement of the existing principal site utility meters
with new smart meters for electricity and gas services arranged through
the current utility suppliers.

Installation of smart water meters for the 100 highest users

Centralised data collection, via web pages, of these principal utility meter
readings for each school through communication links with
analysis/reporting using energy management software.

Local reporting and analysis availability to each school.

Support to schools
4.7.
Phases 2 will provide a proportion of sub metering for DEC requirements (all
buildings over 1000m2). The number will be defined by the remaining budget
from the £1 million available.
5.
5.1.
The Proposed Approach
It is proposed to install the new meters through the utility suppliers and meter
operating companies for the principal meters only. This approach should ensure
minimum disruption to the schools and ensure interoperability between current
and future utility suppliers, ie when supply contracts change there will be no need
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to fit new metering. In addition, it will ensure that the metering will be suitable
for billing purposes.
5.2.
It is proposed that the roll out of smart metering will be applied across the school
estate using a strategic approach, in the following order:

To all principal electricity metering

To all principal gas metering starting with the highest users.

To utility water metering for the 100 highest users
5.3.
Some sites do not have a mains gas supply and rely on either oil or LPG to
provide their space heating requirements. Currently this represents less than 10%
of the energy use across the county. Providing smart meters to monitor oil usage
is considerably more expensive than that of water, electricity or mains gas and
therefore the proposal is not to smart meter those sites in the first phases.
6.
6.1
Phase 1 Smart Metering Roll Out.
The data gathered by each smart meter must be assembled for analysis using data
analysis software. HCC will purchase its own energy management software and
feed the utility suppliers meter reading directly into this. This enables a standard
reporting format and data management service for all school sites, independent
of the utility supplier used. To gain some experience of these types of software a
trial has been undertaken at six secondary schools using software from TEAM,
Stark and Sytemslink – the three leading, long established providers of energy
management systems.
6.2
The exchange or adaptation of existing electricity and gas metering will require
the turning off of supplies for approximately one hour at each site but this is
unlikely to occur simultaneously. This will require a significant communication
strategy with all schools if works are to be completed during normal hours. It will
also require the attendance of the term engineering contractor to ensure all plant
is restored to full operation. For these reasons it is anticipated that attendance
costs will arise as a result of the meter changes or adaption works. It is proposed
that this revenue cost is the first call on the £1m allocated by the Schools Forum
so as to pay for the term contractor’s attendance during meter changing works.
6.3
It is recognised that there will be a learning curve for all parties around the work
involved with installing the principal smart meters. It is proposed that a small
number of typical schools are used as a pilot for the programme to establish what
the issues could be in rolling out the programme across the wider school estate.
6.4.
Summary of Anticipated costs

The installation of principal Gas and Electricity Meters will now be
undertaken by the utility companies at no cost. It is estimated that
attendance costs for the Term Contractors to ensure safe and secure
restoration of services will be in the order of £43,500

It is estimated that water meters for the top 100 consuming sites will cost
£50,000

Software costs are estimated at £25,000 across the whole programme
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7.
Phase 2 Smart Metering Roll Out
7.1.
This phase of smart metering would provide sub metering to enable the
completion of Display Energy Certificates (DEC) for individual buildings greater
than 1000m2 on campus sites. This will require the fitting of sub metering for
electricity, gas and heat meters where heating has been supplied from centralised
boiler plant on the campus site.(Heat meters calculate the energy delivered to a
building by measuring the flow rate of the water and the flow and return
temperatures) Completion of this metering installation will enable DECs to be
provided for all buildings required under the new regulations and will provide
additional intelligence on energy consumption for schools within large campus
sites.
7.2.
There are approx 90 school sites where campus DECs were completed last year.
Each of these sites will have a number of buildings greater than 1000m2.It is
estimated that the number of buildings that require sub metering is 318 – with
approx 900 meters.
7.3.
It is proposed to use a significant proportion of the £1m funding made available
from the Schools Forum to commence with phase 2 of the roll out for this level
of sub metering.
7.4.
At approximately £500 - £3,000 per meter installed (depending on whether it is
electricity, gas, water or heat meters) the total costs for all metering in phase 2
will be in the order of £1.5 - £2.0 million depending on site conditions and the
type of metering used.
7.5.
The proposal therefore is to sub meter the electricity and gas first (the least
expensive meters to install), followed by a programme of heat meter installation.
It is proposed to roll out this programme through 2010 and the first quarter of
2011 with the aim of completing all of phase 1 and the electricity and gas meters
in phase 2 by the end of March 2011.
8. Support for all Schools
8.1
Discussions with a number of school groups including Governors and Head
teachers has indicated that whilst they are keen to engage in energy management
and carbon reduction measures they consider they need support to deliver and
action energy reductions. This needs to be in the form of facilitators and
educators to work with local managers. Property Services is currently working
with the Carbon Trust to develop a Toolkit for Schools to assist with this, but it
is proposed that schools will require a dedicated resource if they are to use this
with maximum effect.
8.2
Secondary and Primary schools are now represented on the County Council’s
Carbon Management Group. Recognising the importance schools have in a
carbon management plan for the Council, a dedicated schools workstream group
is being established to work with officers from the County Council to deliver
carbon reductions.
8.3
Schools Forum is therefore asked to consider using a proportion of the £1m to
fund 2 full time posts for one year (commencing in the spring of 2010). The
posts would work alongside the members of the energy team in Property Services
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to focus on the most appropriate ways of delivering energy management and
carbon reduction across the school estate.
9.
Programme Summary / Estimated Costs
9.1
This table summarises the programme
Phase
9.2
Programme dates
Notes
One
Gas and Electricity
Jan 2010 -Mar 2011
Utility companies will install but attendance
costs involved
One
water
Jan 2010 - Mar 2011
Meters will be purchased and attendance costs
Two
electricity and gas
meters only
Jan 2010- Mar 2011
Meters will be purchased and attendance costs
Schools Support
Officers
Spring 2010 – Spring
2011
In conjunction with the existing energy team in
property services
The estimated time profile of the costs as a result of the utility companies
funding the principal meters is shown below. Revenue costs are the attendance
costs and the school support officers. Capital costs are the purchase and
installation of meters where funded by the County Council .
Revenue
Capital
Total
2009/10
£10,000
£90,000
£100,000
2010/11
£130,000
£770,000
£900,000
Total
£140,000
£860,000
£1,000,000
10
10.1
Conclusion
To roll out the first two phases of the full AMR programme (all principal gas,
electricity and water meters and all electricity, gas and heat sub-meters) to schools
is estimated to cost approximately £1.65 - £2.15 million.
10.2
The initial programme of all of phase 1 and part of phase 2 together with two full
time officer posts to support schools can be funded from the £1 million granted
by the Schools Forum in 2008.
10.3
To complete phase 2 of the schools programme would require an estimated
further £1 - £1.15 million which would fund the installation of heat meters to all
large buildings (>1000m2 ) on campus sites. It is proposed to review this later in
2010 as more accurate information becomes available on installation costs of
later phases of sub-metering.
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11
11.1
Recommendations
Schools Forum are recommended to support the programme of smart metering
set out in this report and the consequential carry forward to 2010/11 of £900,000
of the £1,000,000 allocated by Schools Forum in December 2008.
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