subject: Kingspan rotational moulding site saves annually in excess of £100,000 [print this page] Kingspan rotational moulding site saves annually in excess of 100,000
Kingspan's environmental division has generated annual savings in excess of 100,000 by installing energy saving technologies in their manufacturing facilities in Portadown and Newry.
"Everyday Kingspan is involved in providing environmental solutions for new and existing buildings. We wanted to use the expansion and renovation of our new manufacturing facility in Portadown to make a dramatic change in the way we consume energy, and to reflect the positive impact our products have on the world," said Charles Burns Commercial Director of Kingspan Environmental.
"We are Europe's leading manufacturer of environmental solutions for waste and surface water management, including rainwater harvesting and effluent treatment systems. It seemed only fitting to apply the most cutting edge energy-saving technologies to our own manufacturing facilities," he added.
Kingspan Environmental Newry and Portadown manufacturing facilities are five and seventeen acres in size respectively. Both sites produce a wide range of environmental storage tanks and encompass a mixture of manufacturing and office space.
As part of the massive energy overhaul at both plants, a comprehensive audit was taken. The result is that the Newry facility has been installed with a system for harvesting rainwater, the collected rainwater is then used for non potable applications such as toilet flushing. The site also benefits from oil/water separators and a sophisticated storm water attenuation system guaranteeing the managed discharge of water run off into the watercourses. All the above wastewater management products are designed and manufactured by Kingspan Environmental.
The new manufacturing site in Portadown produces rainwater harvesting systems and environmentally responsible polyethylene storage solutions. As part of the energy transformation, it has been installed with a number of features that generate energy more cost effectively, while reducing energy wastage.
"At the planning stage of the new Portadown site we reviewed and visited all the primary processes equipment suppliers to obtain an overview of the latest energy efficient technologies available within our industry. We combined these technologies with our own inhouse technical experience and integrated both to assemble an efficient state of the art rotational moulding plant" says Charles.
The systems include full computer control of the raw material preparation, networked computer controlled processing machinery, closed loop processing and ancillaries such as zone detection production area lighting, automated material handling, seasonal machine shutdowns, and the use of heat exchange technology all of which reduce the energy requirements of the facility.
An additional facility of an energy management system for gas and electricity enables Kingspan to actively monitor consumption in specific areas of the factory and constantly improve on efficiencies.
On the energy generating side, electricity for both plants is now one hundred percent generated from designated offsite wind farms, which is then purchased off the grid.
"The cost savings on electricity, gas and water bills over both plants are in excess of 100,000 in total annually and the investment in new energy saving new technologies will be repaid in less than two years. Both plants are now future proofed against energy price hikes and are not as overly dependant on traditional fossil fuels as they were before," Charles concluded.
