Virgin Trains
Services
Energy services, including data management; energy bureau services; utility procurement; energy consumption reduction programmes.
Contract detail
Five year contract, recently extended covering 25 buildings including 18 main-line stations.
What was Virgin Trains looking for?
Virgin Trains operates through a network of stations from London, to Scotland, spanning the Midlands, and North West England. The stations contain a mixture of retail outlets, multi-storey car parks, all with extensive lighting and most have various third party tenants on site including retailers. Many of the stations consume energy 24 hours a day which makes the task of implementing energy reduction programmes quite a challenge. The key first step lay in finding a way of capturing and understanding the data consumption.
How did we help?
MITIE helped Virgin Trains by gathering energy data from 16 stations located across the UK, to evaluate its energy usage as a basis for implementing an energy reduction strategy. Once MITIE had gathered sufficient data for gas, electricity and water consumption going back over three years, the information was fed into a sophisticated software package called eSight, which identified exactly where energy was being consumed. MITIE’s energy management team was then able to calculate what financial savings and CO2 emission reductions could be made, providing monthly payback times. Once the data was correctly collected and interpreted, it was straight-forward for MITIE to implement its solutions. These included installing smart wireless controls to reduce lighting consumption, installing timed control push buttons in waiting rooms to ensure the heating turns itself off after 15 minutes and the optimisation of heating, ventilating and air conditioning plant.
The results…
MITIE has helped Virgin Trains reduce its emissions for these stations by 7.2 per cent since 2008, cutting its overall carbon emissions by over 2.5% year-on-year over the period. The quality and accuracy of the data collected was robust enough for BSI to audit and verify it as accurate, and as a result Virgin trains has just become the first train operator to earn the British Standards Institution Kite-Mark for energy management.
Steve Robinson, Safety and Environment Systems Manager at Virgin Trains said: “We couldn’t have gained this accreditation without MITIE’s ability to capture and then analyse where our energy was being consumed, and then suggest and implement strategies to save energy. Not only has Virgin Trains saved money and reduced our carbon emissions but we are now recognised as a leader in this field amongst train operating companies.”