Behind the numbers in 2014: Energy efficiency

6th July 2015

Target:

Achieve a 10% average reduction in total energy required at our three biggest technical sites (Bromley, Stockton and Knowsley) through investment in technical room optimisation and the implementation of free air cooling.

How we did:

Total energy consumption reduced by 5.7% across the three sites, based on like- for- like analysis of Q1 2014 v Q1 2015.

The detail:

The energy we need to power our digital network is our biggest source of carbon emissions – after all, we have around 60,000 mains powered street cabinets. Other energy sources include our vehicle fleet, our diesel generators at our technical sites and the electricity we use in our offices and stores.

In 2014, we set out to reduce the overall energy consumption at our three major Virgin Media technical sites; Knowsley, Bromley and Stockton by 10%.  These sites represent around 12% of energy consumption across our technical locations and achieving this would have would have meant a reduction of approximately two gigawatt hours of electricity (988 tCO2e) which is enough to fill twenty Sydney Opera Houses!

We only achieved a 5.7% reduction because the energy saving measures we had planned – such as technical room optimisation, removing redundant equipment and installing free air cooling - were implemented too late in the year. However, taking an energy consumption average from Jan 2014 and comparing it to the average for Dec 2014,  shows a 14.4% reduction in energy consumption. This is evidence that the changes we made will deliver energy reductions but we implemented them too late in the year.

Find out more about our new operations goal here.

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