Member Article

Railway engineering company achieves 31% energy saving

Doncaster0based Wabtec Rail has slashed its gas bill by a third.

The national railway engineering company has reduced its heating gas usage by 31% and cut CO2 emissions by 690 tonnes per year after installing one of Vickers Electronics’ management systems.

Wabtec Rail and Vickers Electronics have been working together to reduce energy use at the 22-acre site in Doncaster for the last two years.

Vickers Electronics’ technology replaces conventional heating controls, which are often unreliable and wasteful, with purpose-built control panels that constantly monitor and manage temperature and timings so that premises are optimally heated.

Wabtec Rail’s warehouses and sheds were also fitted with door sensors to limit heating loss. A network of seven control panels allows heating to be managed from a single computer.

Steve Cowling, works services manager at Wabtec, said: “The technology simply does what it says on the box and has returned expected savings.”

The company claims to be the UK’s leading railway engineering company, undertaking the overhaul and repair of railway rolling stock, locomotives, passenger coaches and multiple units, and freight wagons.

In addition it overhauls wheelsets, brake equipment, train air conditioning systems, train door systems and passenger, freight and locomotive bogies.

It also supplies the UK rail industry with products manufactured at the Wabtec Corporation worldwide facilities, including train braking systems, train data recorders, electronic equipment, composition brake blocks and pads, air compressors and locomotive radiators and cooler groups.

Malcolm McKinlay, regional accounts manager at Vickers Electronics, said: “For Wabtec Rail the energy saving pledge was 19% but the sub-metering we installed to measure the results has shown we’ve already achieved a 31.4% saving.

“The energy management systems boost bottom line performance while simultaneously improving environmental credentials. Any firm that’s paying energy bills of £6,000 or more needs to consider such a move because that cost can be cut.”

As a result of the success at the South Yorkshire headquarters, Vickers Electronics is to install similar technology at Wabtec Rail’s other sites – Wabtec Rail Scotland in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, and its operation in Loughborough, Leicestershire.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by David Gatehouse .