Since 2014, OSPREY LEISURE CENTRE has saved an additional £35,000.00 each year on energy costs by working closely with energy experts. Due to the success of the Osprey Leisure Centre, this excellent work has been recognised by SPORTA UK who awarded the centre the Exceptional Social Enterprise Improvement Award in May 2016.
Now celebrating its tenth year serving the community Osprey Leisure Centre has seen many changes over the years but none as significant as the savings made in energy consumption from initiatives during the past 5 years. Osprey Leisure Centre was built by the Royal Navy so the foundations are sturdy and the space vast. However, the centre was extremely costly to run and the Osprey Leisure management board soon realised that if utility prices continued to rise as they had been pre 2010 then the hard work of many to keep the centre open would possibly have been wasted.
Work started with a loan from the Carbon Trust which was repaid over a three year period from savings made during that time. New lighting technology, a pool cover and a replacement air handling unit all reduced consumption by approximately 25%. Having seen the results of the astute decision making in the early days, the board teamed up with the company who installed the air handling to test some very new technology which after achieving international patents was the first of its kind in the UK.
The Osprey air source heat pumps were market leaders as all previous units from other manufacturers had not fared well in monitoring done by The Energy Saving Trust who had seen an average system efficiency of only 2.4 compared to the 2.9 required to break even. Since installation the Osprey system has a system efficiency of 4.8, an amazing result which has seen a huge saving in gas consumption. The gas consumption at Osprey Leisure has reduced from 1.2m kWh to 0.2m kWh in the past 12 months.
General Manager of Osprey Leisure Centre Nigel Williams said “In the early days it was frightening how expensive the centre was to run with utility costs taking up over 20% of all our income. The mission to reduce consumption has resulted in this now dropping to well under 10% and this is without the benefits of any Renewable Heat Incentive repayments from the government which will almost make the centre self-sufficient in gas costs.”
Tony Robinson, MD of ESG and inventor of the new technology stated “The current high efficiency of the Osprey air source heat pump is the result of 5 year’s development. The system can half the cost of gas fired heating and as importantly, CO2 emissions can be cut by 60%.”
Close monitoring of the daily figures has shown that in the last 5 months Osprey Leisure Centre has experienced reduced consumption both of gas of 89% and electricity of 2%, the latter being a surprise as electricity is required to produce the reduction in gas.
The Osprey Leisure Board is now able to reinvest these savings and future reductions into the centre by using the savings to invest in improved facilities for the community.
If you would like to know more about Osprey Leisure Centre please call 01305 824378 or click on to the website at www.ospreyleisure.co.uk
