British industry wastes over £3 billion a year on outdated energy sources

A new report out this week has revealed that British industry wastes a huge £3.2 billion each year and emits an excess 13 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) by using outdated off-mains energy sources.

British industry, which includes among others the industrial, farming, construction, mining, leisure, textile and printing sectors, currently spends almost £12 billion a year on oil for its heating, lighting and manufacturing processes.

Even though oil prices are currently falling, new research suggests this figure can be cut dramatically to around £8.7 billion by switching to LPG.

The wasted spend comes from those companies who, unable to access mains energy, are using old-fashioned energy supplies, like oil. Not only is oil an expensive fuel, but is also an inefficient and dirty fuel to burn.

An alternative to oil for off-mains energy is LPG, a fuel with a lower cost price, less CO2 emissions and greater efficiency.

By switching to LPG, the sectors could reduce their energy costs on fuel alone by almost £2.6 billion, a saving of 22%.

This saving rises to up to over £3.2 billion when the oil burning equipment is replaced by the much more fuel efficient LPG burners, giving a total saving of up to 27% when compared to oil.

With cost savings of up to 27%, when compared to the cost of switching from oil to LPG, the benefits are obvious, with the average business recouping their initial outlay in under a year.

The switch to LPG would also lead to a massive reduction in industry’s carbon footprint.

With industry currently using almost 187 billion kW of energy a year from off-mains resources, generated from almost 20 billion litres of oil, it is producing the equivalent of 58 million tonnes of CO2 a year.

However, if that energy had been generated from LPG, CO2 emissions would be cut by 13.2 million tonnes a year (23%), to just under 45 million tonnes.

This saving is equivalent to 6.6 million flights from London to Sydney, or the weight of 132 million baby elephants.

The figures are revealed in the ‘Flogas Energy Expenditure Report’, a piece of research initially carried out by Flogas to provide background information for its sales teams. However, the company was so shocked by the findings, it decided to share them with the sector as a whole.

When broken down by sector, the industrial organisations could make the biggest financial and carbon savings, followed by construction, leisure and farming / rural manufacturing businesses.