The big picture: Parliament

Parliament is setting an example by reducing its carbon and water consumption. In the latest in an occasional series on big customers, Kathy Oxtoby asks: what more can utility suppliers do to help?

Managing the utility needs of Parliament presents some unique challenges. The estate has 12 sites – including the Palace of Westminster – and three-­quarters of Parliamentary buildings are listed, which means any work to improve utility services requires a sensitive approach. Parliament is also a 24-hour ­operation and has people working there at all times of the day and night. Plus, around one million tourists a year pass through its doors.

All procurement of gas and electricity services for Parliament is carried out through the Government Procurement Service framework, “to make sure we get the best possible value for money”, says Charlotte Simmonds, head of fire safety and environment, Parliamentary Estates Directorate.

Simmonds says one of the priorities is to reduce Parliament’s carbon footprint. Since 2008, targets have been set (see box) and schemes established to make all the buildings more energy efficient. To encourage a greener Parliament, energy audits have been carried out to look at how best to manage different heating demands presented by the 12 core buildings on the estate. Transformer tapping and voltage optimisation have been used to reduce oversupply. A lighting replacement programme has been put in place – LED lamps now floodlight the Palace of Westminster and are used in the central lobby, saving 92kWh a day.

Targets were also put in place to reduce water consumption, and these have already been smashed (see box). A number of initiatives are responsible. At Portcullis House, borehole water is abstracted to cool the building in summer and pre-heat it in winter. Borehole water is also used to supply the water features in Portcullis House, water for the waste disposal units and for flushing the toilets.

Improvement and repair work to the cooling towers in the Palace of Westminster has also helped reduce water consumption. Where there had been a high level of wastage of water from damage to pipework, water loss has now been reduced to zero, with anticipated future loss coming only from natural evaporation.

Last year, a project was completed to install remote automated loggers on the mains water meters across the estate. This provides Parliament with half-hourly consumption data and helps to quickly identify any leaks or unusual patterns of water use.

Clearly, Parliament has already achieved some impressive reductions. So what would make life easier and help it to cut emissions and water consumption even further? Accurate and regular invoicing from utility suppliers would be helpful, says Simmonds. As a large estate, “billing for individual sites is important to us, because we want good quality data to help manage our energy and water supplies”.

She would also like to see utilities being more flexible about accepting customer meter readings. “Billing accuracy is often a problem, and there appears to be little consistency as to when meter readings are used. This is a real issue for us because if estimates are used and are significantly out, budget forecasting is affected.

“We prefer credits to be issued where estimates are incorrect, but some suppliers have withdrawn this arrangement and re-adjust the following month, which is also not ideal for managing the budget,” she says.

Simmonds believes it would be helpful to have a dedicated account manager from each utility (she won’t name names) who could deal with specific queries. “Some services have dedicated account managers and some don’t and that’s frustrating,” she says.

Simmonds recalls, for instance, a time when she was dealing with an ongoing query with a supplier regarding inaccurate billing of a building “for a minimal sum of money”. She says information had been supplied to prove that inaccuracy, but to try and resolve this issue involved dealing with “numerous members of the supplier’s staff”, and resulted in having to resort to issuing a complaint about the service provided.

To resolve these sorts of issues, Simmonds would like to have “easy access to a dedicated long-term account manager and to someone who has a good understanding of the complexities involved in supplying utility services to the estate”. She continues: “We want an account manager who is going to be there for us, and for some time, so we can build up working relations and use our time efficiently. And, if they have a query about billing, we can direct them to the right place so they can get answers more quickly, get paid more quickly, and then everything runs more efficiently.”

When a personal approach from utilities is lacking, it can be difficult to know if issues are being addressed, because so many people are involved in any response to your queries, she says. However, sometimes Simmonds has found utilities overly keen when it comes to customer support. “One of our suppliers has my mobile number – I’m not sure why – and I repeatedly get phone messages that say I need to contact them urgently. When I’m asked for my account number, I point out that they phoned me. I usually pass them on to our estates team. It’s a personal bugbear,” she says.

Electronic billing would also be helpful. While some firms offer this service, Simmonds would like to see all of them do so. “It would remove the paper element and ensure everything is more in real time and more seamless. It would also make sure bills are going to the right people, as opposed to winding their way through various internal and external postal routes. Electronic billing is also more easily traced and storable.

“We believe all suppliers have the capability to allow for electronic billing, however Parliament does not currently benefit from this service. Now is the time to revisit this and work together to make it happen.”

Kathy Oxtoby is a freelance journalist

The agenda

Parliament’s environmental targets relating to energy and water consumption

· Carbon: to reduce absolute carbon dioxide emissions by 34 per cent by 2020/21. A 16 per cent reduction was achieved at the end of 2011/12

· Water: to reduce water consumption by 25 per cent by 2020/21. A 32 per cent reduction in was achieved at the end of 2011/12. As water consumption has decreased so significantly, Parliament is seeking to revise the target.

This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 8th March 2013.

Get Utility Week’s expert news and comment – unique and indispensible – direct to your desk. Sign up for a trial subscription here: http://bit.ly/zzxQxx