Users of older UPS equipment will be heavily penalised under the new CRC Energy Efficiency carbon trading scheme

(05/03/2010)

The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme (formerly known as the Carbon Reduction Commitment) will initially affect around 20,000 organisations in the UK and the largest 5,000 of these will participate in a Carbon Reduction Commitment League Table that will show the relative performance of CRC participants.

Apart from the question of the cost of carbon credits, the question is, how will the ranking in the league table affect the standing of the individual companies in the eyes of customers, business partners and employees? Each qualifying organisation will be required to purchase allowances, priced at £12 for every tonne of carbon linked to their energy use. The scheme will operate as a 'cap and trade' mechanism, providing a financial incentive to reduce energy use by putting a price on carbon emissions from energy consumption.

Organisations will be required to participate in the CRC scheme if they have at least one half-hourly electricity meter (HHM) settled on the half-hourly market. They also qualify if their total half-hourly electricity consumption exceeded 6,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) during 2008. This means many data centres, supermarkets, hotel chains, banks, local authorities and central Government Departments are affected and will have to purchase allowances to cover their annual CO2 emissions. Qualifying organisations must comply with the scheme or face financial and other penalties.

Chloride has announced that Trinergy, its high efficiency UPS technology, could significantly cut the energy wasted by the UK’s biggest users of electricity and Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS). It will also help them avoid additional costs resulting from the CRC Energy Efficiency scheme due to come into force from April 2010.

“The current cost of inefficient power use is inexcusable; it harms the environment and is passed on to consumers and businesses,” explained Chloride’s Technical Support Manager, Rob Tanzer. “The third generation of UPS equipment, such as Trinergy, is now 98% efficient, which, compared to a typical 1,000kW legacy UPS system, can cut the electricity costs of running a UPS by three quarters. By cutting UPS energy losses to just 2%, the system cooling energy requirement will also be reduced, resulting in an overall annual saving of nearly £100,000 for every 1,000kW of protected power – and an ongoing carbon reduction equivalent to removing 170 family cars from the road each year.”

“Big electricity users needing uninterrupted power, typically waste around eight per cent of their entire critical power throughput by putting it through the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems that protect sensitive equipment and processes from power supply failures,” said Tanzer. “Power wastage can be massively cut if older UPS systems are replaced, not forgetting the associated reduction in cooling cost savings, energy cost savings, tax offset, infrastructure savings and more power.”

“Comparing the new 1000kW Trinergy UPS unit against existing, transformer-based technology of 10 years ago, the CO2 saving could equate to as much as 600 tonnes per year. If the CRC allowance is £12 per tonne, it would mean that firms would have the potential of saving a further £7,200 per year over and above the annual energy savings resulting from operating an ultra high efficiency UPS such as the Trinergy system.”

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