With increased energy costs continuing to bite for businesses, when it comes to energy solutions cost savings are often top of mind. Powerstar specialise in delivering solutions that not only offer substantial savings, but also provide a range of other energy management and organisational benefits.
Sustainability
Across the board, the primary way that our technologies deliver savings is through improving our client’s energy efficiency. At the same time, each unit of electricity saved through better efficiency is a unit that isn’t contributing to their carbon emissions. Unless a client already sources all or most of their energy from renewable sources, better energy efficiency is typically one of the most significant steps they can take in terms of decarbonisation.
For those clients that are already further down the sustainability journey, such as those that have installed on-site generation, our battery energy storage systems can help to further improve both their return on investment and carbon savings. For solar PV, the most common clean generation technology, battery storage can be used to store excess power during bright, sunny weather, which can then be tapped into overnight rather than resorting to more carbon-intensive grid power.
Power Resilience and Quality
The indirect savings generated through better power resilience and voltage quality can sometimes be as significant a cost saving as reducing energy bills. For sectors vulnerable to power outages, such as manufacturing, a disruption can result in huge losses in terms of lost productivity and wasted raw materials.
Using BESS to provide emergency power in the event of a power disruption event helps to ensure that a site continues operating even if supply from the grid is lost, or enough time is provided to switch to backup generation or carry out a safe, controlled shutdown in the event of a longer outage.
Voltage optimisation plays an important role in ensuring quality of power, alongside its cost reduction benefit. Typically, UK sites are supplied with an overvoltage, substantially higher than the 220V most electrical equipment is designed to operate most efficiently at. Not only is this wasting energy, but also increases wear and tear on equipment and subsequent repair and replacement costs. The indirect savings VO offers in this regard can be very substantial.
Managing Reputational RiskÂ
Key audiences, including customers, supply chain partners and investors, increasingly look for businesses to demonstrate a genuine commitment to becoming more sustainable. Our technology and expertise help to ensure that our clients can show clear and measurable sustainability improvements.Â
Power outages can also have a huge impact on reputation, with the delays and disruption they can cause resulting in missed deadlines, increased costs to customers and other reputational risks. Preventing them is an important aspect of meeting customer expectations.Â
GrowthÂ
New technology, as well as increased electrification and digitisation, offers huge potential when it comes to improving productivity and profitability for a range of different sectors. However, the substantial additional demand that these technologies can bring with them can be problematic. With distribution networks already constrained across much of the UK, often there isn’t enough capacity available for technologies such as rapid EV charging. In these cases, at best a client’s DNO might require an additional grid connection, typically at substantial expense and with a lengthy waiting period. Sometimes, an application for new infrastructure will be turned down outright.Â
The use of a battery to both provide additional capacity when required, and to buffer high-demand technology from a site’s grid connection, can be a more timely and cost-effective solution. My drawing power from the battery rather than directly from the grid, concerns around grid constraints can be navigated, while the use of digital modelling and feasibility studies can demonstrate that a project won’t compromise localised power resilience.Â
Problem SolvingÂ
Ultimately, Powerstar specialise in solving complex energy infrastructure and management challenges for our clients, problems that in many cases we are unique in having the expertise and track record to be able to resolve. While we are leading manufacturers of a range of energy technologies, it is our ability to find solutions to complex energy challenges that is at the heart of our business. Â
Our comprehensive feasibility study service is a key part of this approach, allowing proposed projects to be assessed across a wide variety of variables, providing evidence that a project will perform as expected, has been costed accurately and delivers on the specific energy management objectives of an individual client.Â