Energy Consumption (Hansard, 5 June 1990)

§ Mr. Dobson
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will give the number of dedicated energy managers in his Department and the number of person years devoted to energy management in the latest year.

§ Mrs. Rumbold
Eight officials across the Department have energy management responsibilities. In person years the total time they devote to these responsibilities has been set at 0.5 years. This level of commitment is broadly in line with the recommendations contained in the Audit Commission's guidelines of one central energy manager for every £1 million of annual bill.

§ Mr. Dobson
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will give the number of energy audits carried out in his Department in the last five years and for each audit a statement of its main conclusions.

§ Mrs. Rumbold
The PSA was responsible for undertaking energy audits on the Department's behalf until very recently. In the interim an energy audit has been conducted at both our London and Darlington headquarters buildings.
The London audit confirmed that it was possible to achieve energy savings by installing light and water control sensors, but that in view of an impending move to new premises, capital expenditure was not justified because insufficient payback time remains available.
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The audit of our Darlington headquarters confirmed that useful savings could be achieved by fitting light control sensors and by installing power factor correction equipment to upgrade the electrical power supply at that site. Both these energy audit recommendations have been implemented.

§ Mr. Dobson
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will give for each year from 1978 the energy consumption, broken down by fuel, of the buildings occupied by his Department, expressing the figures in(a) cash terms, (b) 1978–79 money terms and (c) units of consumption for electricity in kilowatt hours, gas in therms, liquid fuel in litres and solid fuel in tonnes.

§ Mrs. Rumbold
The information sought is not held in the Department. The PSA was responsible for monitoring energy consumption on the Department's behalf until 30 March 1990.