A unitary authority in North Yorkshire, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council is responsible for providing vital services to residents and businesses in their area.
The Council has set an ambitious target for the heavy industry borough to be carbon neutral by 2030, and SystemsLink’s Energy Manager software supports their decarbonisation with effective energy management.
The challenge
The public sector is constantly expected to keep vital services running with less money. Therefore, any support to control budgets is welcome.
The solution
Although the Redcar and Cleveland Council has been successfully using SystemsLink software since 2010, updating their Energy Manager package has allowed the Council team to maximise the benefits the software can offer.
Besides Energy Manager, the Council team uses SystemsLink’s Operational Rating Toolkit, finance module, as well as the budget tool to support their financial decision-making.
The easily available utility data allows the Council to communicate site-specific information, such as abnormal levels of energy use, to address any issues and reduce consumption.
Furthermore, when a public sector organisation seeks to decarbonise, applying for funding successfully becomes key. With swift turnaround times and high demand for funding, the necessary information must be at hand for the staff to build a strong application.
When applying for programmes such as the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS), the Energy Manager software helps the Council team to collate the information they need.
The results
Producing Display Energy Certificates (DECs) is an important income revenue for the Council. The SystemsLink Operational Rating (OR) Toolkit allows any approved Energy Assessor to use the software to produce DECs.
The facility is fully integrated with the main Energy Manager package and certificates are stored alongside existing energy data for ease of use and audit ability. The Council’s in-house assessor team has found the Toolkit a “fantastic” resource for time efficiency.
In 2022, SystemsLink software also supported the Council in achieving a £250,000 cost avoidance through energy management, querying and validation measures.
“I want to make sure we use SystemsLink for everything because it does everything.
We do a lot of funding bids, such as PSDS, and you need a lot of standard information in those applications, such as boiler age.
Our facilities management team has got this information, but asking for it can take time and sometimes these bids have a very quick turnaround.
As a result, we’re using custom fields within Energy Manager to collect information like boiler age, make and model. Then when it comes to making a SQL report – the information is there.”
Lizzie Kemp,
Energy Management Specialist
Get software that supports your decarbonisation strategy
Join the hundreds of local authorities using SystemsLink to control budgets and deliver effective energy management.
