Meet the E&E Award-winner: Energy Manager of the Year – Jude Hughes, NIBSC

Over the past seven years in her role as energy manager at NIBSC, Jude Hughes has achieved the following headline figures for this large and energy-intensive government research centre: a 17% reduction in carbon footprint, a 12% reduction in electricity consumption, a 20% reduction in gas consumption, and utilities cost savings amounting to £746,000. Meet the Energy Manager of the Year...


Through her work, Jude has pushed sustainable development onto the agenda for NIBSC staff and embedded, through culture change, a community ethos of being green. She has established an in-house EMS system from scratch and since expanded her remit to cover energy management for the estate resulting from NIBSC’s merger with the Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Early on in her role, Jude developed a lighting strategy to replace fluorescent lamps with LEDs, which were relatively new on the energy scene. She project managed this £180,000 initiative which reaped many benefits including annual savings of £45,000 with a four-year payback.

More recently, Jude worked on a large-scale project to install 1,490 solar panels, which represents NIBSC’s first stride into renewables. She worked hard to push this through given the solar industry’s turmoil at the time. The project stands to save £2.7 million over its 20-year lifecycle, with a seven-year payback period, and will deliver further savings of up to 10% of site electricity.

Older plant has also been a priority. A replacement boiler scheme, which cost £1.3 million,  has greatly contributed to the top-level savings on gas consumption. Jude has also implemented numerous low-cost (or no cost) schemes to replace and improve inefficient equipment such as lighting/PIR controls, compressed air, steam traps, heat zoning and replacement transformers. Future projects will include double glazing and insulation of the 1980s building fabric.

Jude seeks new technologies and continually reviews options. She has overseen voluntary Display Energy Certificates (DECs) for the site, and year-on-year DECs have reduced significantly, from 544 in 2008 to 236 in 2015.

She also has ongoing targets to continue to reduce consumption, for example by 6 % per annum, and has developed business cases for a series of capital projects to help reduce costs and carbon utilisation further. Because of her achievements, Jude has been the subject of several supplier case studies to demonstrate the success of those projects she has overseen.

Judges’ comments:

Jude is an excellent self-starter who has made a huge impact. She has successfully engaged staff at all levels of her organisation. A worthy winner!

Energy Manager of the Year: Meet the finalists

Colin Reid, Wheatley Group

As energy and sustainability manager for the Wheatley Group of Housing Associations in Scotland, Colin’s role is to alleviate the issue of chronic energy shortage and open access to cheaper, cleaner and more sustainable energy for local communities. Colin has helped to greatly improve the energy performance of buildings after implementing a series of innovative initiatives, including a biomass district heating retrofit project in Glasgow which provided a gross annual energy reduction of 1,040MWh.

Graeme McKenzie-Netherwood, Mitie

Graeme joined energy services company Mitie in June 2014 as energy and sustainability manager, taking responsibility for energy innovation, improving processes and identifying potential energy savings. Over two years that Graeme has been with Mitie, he has played a huge role in Mitie’s improved energy performance across its Cumbrian entities. Graeme has streamlined electricity metering across the buildings Mitie is responsible for, and at one of its largest client’s sites.

edie staff

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