The introduction of new battery technologies is helping Keltbray decarbonise its power usage and has considerably reduced running costs, the company said.
Keltbray claims that since introducing Aggreko’s battery energy storage system (BESS) technology, it has seen a reduction of over 200 tonnes of carbon. This has resulted in savings of more than 75,000 litres of fuel – the equivalent of over £100,000 in fuel costs.
According to Aggreko, while the sustainable benefits of BESS have long been undisputed, uptake has been low across the construction industry until recently due to perceptions that the technology was in its infancy.
“We wanted to look at batteries for some time, but it also needed to make commercial sense and market conditions just hadn’t made it viable until that point,” said Kiro Tamer, head of environmental sustainability at Keltbray.
“When fuel prices started to rise around April, that’s when things started to change. Since then, the adoption of the technology has come along so quickly.”
Keltbray has used BESS at 12 projects across the UK, including the maintenance of a cargo shed at Heathrow Airport, new flood defences for Sheffield City Council, and a neighbourhood in East London.
Tamer added: “The versatility of this technology is demonstrated via the wide variety of projects and sites we have been able to introduce it into, making it a fundamental part of our decarbonisation strategy. In just 12 months, we went from using no batteries, to them accounting for at least 25% of our temporary power procurement with Aggreko.”
