Network Rail

With the help of SystemsLink’s market leading software Network Rail is able to easily monitor and therefore control energy consumption.

When Network Rail realised that they needed to improve the handling of their energy data, Wendi Wheeler was the person they turned to.

Her particular skillset and knowledge was ideal to implement new efficiency ideas for a portfolio that is both large and diverse. In turn, Wendi found the exact software to help in her new role at Network Rail.

“When I came to Network Rail three years ago everything was centralised and energy consumption was rising. Nobody on the ground who was using the energy had any visibility of the data or had any concept of the energy going through the business. For me the benefit of bringing in the system has been that in conjunction with devolving the budget, the business has a tool to be able to see what is happening and to understand and consider energy management.

Without the system, and without the access and visualisation of the data, they wouldn’t have been able to do that.”
Wendi Wheeler, Network Rail

The solution

The Energy Manager software has helped underpin a wide range of projects and tasks
for Network Rail.

With centralised users handling the software from Head Office, Network Rail
created their own energy Bureau to handle the processing of data, from supplier
invoicing through to tenant billing. As Wendi explains, the data requires careful
handling with a complex setup.

“We have a lot of shared supplies within the rail infrastructure, a lot of third parties will take the energy from which we have to charge for through sub-metering or calculations. We are trying to manage all of this through Energy Manager to ensure that we have everything in the same place. As well as this, the Energy Bureau extract all of the energy and finance reporting into the business from the software.”

The results

Network Rail have in excess of 37,000 staff around the country and the data
from the Energy Manager software is disseminated in varying ways.

Some of the business units use it for cleansing their own portfolio and to gauge energy
efficiency measures. Part of Wendi’s job is to roll out training sessions and workshops around the country on the Web Reports element of Energy Manager, particularly looking at consumption trends, profile data and lack of billing from
suppliers.

The software is also utilised within project teams and the benefits are already
being realised by Network Rail as outlined by Wendi.

“A lot of the infrastructure projects find the online software really useful as they can see where our DNO points are, which means they don’t have to find out from elsewhere. There’s also a safety benefit, as we are able to store the metering locations and teams don’t need to visit site to find meters. We’re finding there’s a heavy business efficiency as well as the safety benefits for people using it.”

As Energy Manager has become more integrated within Network Rail, the process
of energy management has started to disseminate through the organisation.
With such a high consumption, it makes sense to handle energy efficiencies at
local level as the knowledge of consumption improves. Wendi explains how this
has been handled.

“Recently the business has become more and more devolved, with responsibility for energy management now sitting with the individual routes of the business rather than centrally.

We now have a strategic lead in each route, people who are setting up energy working groups. They are starting to look into energy management in their own patches with the central team’s guidance, so we’re educating users all over the country to undertake the more detailed analysis in the main package that they wouldn’t be able to do on the portal.”

As Energy Manager is now fully embedded within Network Rail, the benefits are
starting to be seen. For Wendi, as the responsibility for lowering consumption
is starting to be handled at a more local level, her time can be focussed on
enabling the next set of efficiency implementations and reporting requirements,
each underpinned by Energy Manager.