Murton & Co teamed up with Pulse Systems, Centric Energy and Quartzelec to help real estate investment trust Assura – and the NHS – reduce lighting bills, meet its carbon reduction targets and save millions of pounds across its estate of primary care medical centres. 

Poor lighting was one of the main issues Jonny Murton-Lavelle identified when he began gathering data at 382 of Assura’s community health buildings in October 2020. The portfolio landlord had set out to achieve an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) band B rating across its 617-strong building portfolio by 2026, with properties ranging from a 250sq metre surgery in a converted Victorian terraced house to a 4,000sq metre purpose‐built centre. Work involved mapping the layout and assessing the fabric of each building to understand thermal values, along with the heating and cooling provisions, in order to create an Energy Performance score. As part of the energy assessments, Murton & Co used arbnco software to input energy performance data, running simulations to identify carbon savings and the cost of potential work.

“Gleaning actual information is always better than using assumed lighting efficiency values when conducting assessments – hence the importance of posing questions during and following site visits,”

says Jonny.

“Accurate data can be so valuable as a way to point out ways of reducing wastage or costs through changes to the building.”

Murton & Co was supplied with historic data for some of the buildings, meaning that their baseline EPC would be substantially different – and initial decisions needed to be made based on outdated modelling.

“We had to quickly understand what was needed – as well as conducting many of the assessments during the pandemic – which piled on the pressure,”

Jonny adds.

Assura was then presented with detailed energy efficiency and retrofit strategies that would take each building’s EPC from a fail to a pass. Pulse Systems – an ‘agnostic’ tech vendor which designs artificially smart buildings connected to the cloud – in tandem with energy consultancy Centric Energy – which provides end-to-end energy management support –utilised Murton & Co’s data to detail how intelligent wireless mesh lighting could impact on each EPC so that Assura could also meet ESG criteria and make its buildings ‘future proof’ for other smart building controls.

Kevin Davies – Pulse Systems

 

“We enable companies to go on a journey to the cloud, so they’ve got greater return on investment and deep data insight into their buildings, as well as the ability to monitor energy,”

explains Pulse Systems’ MD Kevin Davies.

“Jonny and Matt had conversations around what information I needed specifically from an EPC point of view, and we could also pull back the layers and interrogate the building a bit further when extra EPC points were needed to hit a B band.”

Centric designed lighting tailored to the required lux (light) levels for each building’s needs. Resulting smart systems meant health staff could put lights on timers in consulting rooms or alter the hue or light levels in settings with light-sensitive patients. All Assura’s tenants now have greater control through using smart lighting, which even knows when a light needs changing before they do; Centric Energy can procure and fit replacements without interruption, explains director Matt Kehoe.

Matt Kehoe – Centric Energy

 

“We probably pushed Assura into testing the water with going smart and took them on that journey,”

he says.

“Pulse could then add on tech to create the best system, allowing energy using assets to report their status and usage to the cloud.”

Volumes – both procurement and fitting – were challenging during the retrofit process, however, Centric successfully installed over 20,000 LED lights in two and a half months at buildings continuously staffed by medical teams conducting sensitive and time-critical work. Quartzelec was the primary mechanical and electrical delivery partner involved in making sure site installations were co-ordinated effectively and the engineering teams delivered an efficient, well managed installation of the lighting hardware and controls in line with UK regulations.

“During post-installation surveys we were getting a lot of feedback from occupiers who were largely really pleased with the improvements, although sometimes there were issues about motion sensor timing with lights going off too soon, but these were simple things to adjust,”

says Jonny.

The cloud now holds Assura’s live lighting designs from which Centric can extract lux level data and average wattage data on each building.

“The cloud environment allows everyone at Assura to look at statistics such as room occupancy across all the sites in real time, while we can amend lighting remotely without having to visit the site,”

adds Kevin.

“It’s about future proofing buildings, so they can add in air conditioner controls or other building assets later, because the system is already in place.

“In the next few years, if a building isn’t smart or doesn’t have the ability to become smart, the owner will have trouble selling it, or it will be sold for peanuts,” he explains. “This work is about protecting Assura’s assets in the future.”

The company already has the figures to prove the project’s worth, according to Matt, who reports that across the last 26 sites it retrofitted, Centric has saved Assura 1,303,028 kWh per annum and 693,036 CO2 per annum – a 79% energy saving reduction. This translates to a massive £400,000 annual saving for these initial NHS locations and £4.3 million over the next 10 years, based on electricity at 29p per kWh – so the opportunity to have significant impact is there.

The project’s next phase will kick off in September when more buildings will need assessing and retrofitting, particularly following Assura’s purchase of 14 private hospitals from Northwest Healthcare Properties REIT. This will involve some extremely sizeable properties, however, Murton & Co, Centric and Pulse are confident that their good working relationship means they can continue to deliver the best results to challenging deadlines.

“We were often working against the clock to get the data – through assessments and from Assura – and then to register EPCs,”

says Jonny.

“However, we managed to generate this quickly and met those deadlines.”

He believes the process was helped by a constant flow of information between the companies – including scheduled bi-weekly meetings with Assura – which meant they weren’t working in silos.

“There’s a lot of trust now between Jonny, Assura and us, helped by the aftercare services and our hassle-free process,”

agrees Matt.

“We delivered on what we said we were going to, for both Assura and their clients. Collaboration works, and it’s great when you come across businesses that are willing to share and help each other like Murton & Co.”