By Masha Rumyantseva
Sustainable energy is often considered the only solution to the global problem that is climate change. Embracing greener alternatives to traditional polluters such as oil and gas could be the key to saving our planet from reaching the point of no return.
Bob Blincowe works at SSE Energy Solutions, a company that helps its clients reduce the amount of energy their building expends to make it more sustainable and cost-efficient. We interviewed him to gain a deeper insight into his experience in the field and to see what the future holds for us all.
What drew you to a career in the energy sector?
It happened almost by accident, really. When I left school I did an energy apprenticeship in the Royal Air Force, then spent 14 years fixing airplanes. When I left the RAF back in the early 90s I got into technical sales, and by way of a couple of different companies got into the building services industry, selling steam control valves for HFAC and process control purposes. I’ve been in the building services industry ever since. In about 2014 I joint trend controls, which was a BMS (building management system) business, and from there went into building controls and the energy efficiency sector. The last 10-12 years there has been a big focus on that, but I did sort of get into the sector by accident, and then have spent time since then working for various business that have really pushed that agenda.
What advice would you give to students that are interested in both engineering and sustainability, and want to work in the energy efficiency sector in the future?
My biggest piece of advice would be, if you’re interested in the engineering side of it, to look for some sort of sponsorship from a corporate company in the final few years of your studies. I work for SSE, and we have a graduate and sponsorship scheme. While you’re at school, get involved in engineering schemes, such as Gold Industrial Cadets, and from then look into undergraduate and graduate schemes with some big sustainability companies and try to get yourself some work experience in a gap year or a sponsored position. Start looking around the industry and see what opportunities are available to you.
What is an area that you think SSE Energy Solutions is particularly strong in that other companies may not do as well?
I work in the smart buildings division, which we are particularly strong in. We are the largest independent BMS (building management system) smart buildings installer in the UK. In general SSE are UK leaders and fairly strong in Europe in terms of solar energy, we’ve got really good wind and solar schemes going well as well as some hydro schemes. SSE grew out of the old Scottish power from several years ago and we’ve always been strong in that sustainability sector. SSE is probably leading the way in installing sustainable wind and solar farms .
When SSE takes on new clients to work on energy efficiency, is there any particular area that the clients don’t expect to be taking up as much energy , or does it vary from client to client?
It varies from client to client really. From an energy requirement point of view, the biggest thing we’re currently seeing is grid restrictions. This is when you want to build a new site or you want to add to your site, its getting that extra capacity out of the National Grid. We’ve adopted something called whole system thinking, which means that if you’re extending your facilities you really need to optimise what you’ve already got on your site so that extra draw on the grid is reduced to a minimum and you don’t need to have as much impact on the energy usage. It varies from site to site, but I think the common denominator through them all is that, when you’re starting out, you have to understand exactly what’s drawing out your energy usage so that you can map your whole system out better. What sources are you going to use? How are you going to draw on those services? How are they going to overlap with each other? So you’re maximising what you already have, that kind of thing.
Do you think energy efficiency has an impact on the wider country in general?
It should, I don’t think it has as big an effect as it should at the moment. I don’t think theres as big a focus on it right now as there should be. If you think about the sustainability world right now, the decarbonisation drive, if there was as much effort put into the decarbonisation and sustainability around buildings as there is, for example, around transport, I think we could make a huge difference. Right now there is a big focus around transport, there is a move towards electric cars, hybrid cars, to get away from internal combustion. Yet if you drive through a typical town, let alone a major city, you will see that 85, 90 percent of buildings are lit up like a proverbial Christmas tree, for lack of a better word. So I think that if we put as much effort into the building infrastructure as much as we do on the transport infrastructure I think we could make a much much better impact on the environment. I don’t think theres as much focus on it yet, but there is an opportunity to really make a big impact.
Every year global energy expenditure increases. Do you think we could ever reach a point where buildings are so efficient that they could outpace that, stopping the growth of energy usage and maybe even decrease it?
I do, I think we really could do that. Particularly on buildings that have a large surface area. With inner city buildings it’s difficult, obviously, because we build up rather than out, so the surface area that we have for wind and solar generation is small. But certainly on university campuses, and the wider areas where you have significant land that you could put solar farms in, you’d could put wind in, generate hydropower even. I think we could get to a point where estates are self-generating and maybe even put energy back into the National Grid for others. I also think that adopting lower energy technology will start to reduce our power-hungry needs. I think we could get to that point, I’m not sure if I would like to put a figure on it, but I think we could get to that point.
Are there any key challenges that you anticipate in the field of sustainable energy in the next few years?
From a UK perspective, I think challenges are always resource led. We’re a fairly densely populated island with limited land so there is always a lack of resources to put into wind and solar energy. I think there is also an issue around where the ecology and the environment lends itself to that. SSE are involved in a scheme at the moment where we’re building a huge solar farm in the Sahara desert. The issue with that is obviously distribution. Solar farms in the UK are difficult because the sun doesn’t always shine, and when the sun doesn’t shine its not particularly productive. Those are our particular limitations and I think what we’ll have to do more and more of is find particular infrastructure and then the distribution comes with that. In a similar way you could think of older technologies. We have lots of transportation and distribution pipelines for gas and oil that run from the oil rich areas to areas with lots of demand for energy. So that would be the challenge for me, connecting the resources to where the demand is.
A variety of fields have already been affected by the development of AI in recent years. Do you see it as an opportunity to develop the efficiency of sustainability, and if so, in what particular area?
I think theres a big place for AI generally, I think only a fool wouldn’t recognise that theres a place for AI going forward. I think we’ve seen with the recent summit that was held over at Bletchley Park that control is the key, to make sure that the AI we are introducing is controlled. We use quite a bit of AI already in the building controls sector. We have something that we call ‘digital twin monitoring’, and that is used for insuring that your heating and cooling are working in unison together. We use a lot of AI in that sphere and we would also use it for weather mapping. We use an AI program to ensure that we are mapping the weather as far enough in advance as possible. We would use AI learning in terms of learning the uses of the building so that we are ensuring the heating and cooling aren’t fighting against each other. I think there’s obviously a place for AI, but control is the key for me.
The initial costs of improving energy efficiency of a building are seen as quite high sometimes, but then that cost is offset within a couple of years. Would you say that that has an effect on the types of clients you get and how many people are willing to make their buildings more efficient?
It does, that behaviour has changed a bit as of late with the real impact on energy prices that certain recent events have had. Obviously the war in Ukraine and whats going on in the Middle East has an impact. The rising energy prices have driven people into thinking that way. A cost that is repayable within twelve, eighteen, twenty four months is now seen as a good investment whereas previously that payback may have taken beyond 2-3 years because the energy cost wasn’t so high. With the high cost of energy now that payback period is reduced so there is more willingness. We generally see interest from businesses which are cost-restrained, it is widely accepted within businesses such as the NHS, other government and public funded areas. It’s also become more prevalent within the university space where they’ve got to be seen spending their fees more constructively. It’s becoming more widely accepted, the high initial cost is payed back now on return of investment.
I think companies such as SSE and the like, we have become more aware of that as well. At SSE we have a scheme where you can have a capital project carried out almost like a support contract, so you get the benefit upfront and pay for it on a monthly reducing scale as you would if you were intending to have your building serviced. I think the world has changed in terms of how we expect capital to be spent and the return on investment you get, but I think people are also much more open now to investing their savings on their energy cost into actually saving that energy.