UK leisure park checks out energy savings

25-03-2022

One of the UK’s largest holiday park operators has chosen ABB’s state-of-the art technology to optimize its energy usage. Easy integration and connectivity made ABB Ability™ Energy & Asset Manager the clear choice for Park Holidays, opening the door for further sites and a broader sustainability focus.

Park Holidays has 42 sites across the country, serving the fast-growing “staycation” market. With staycations in the UK set to grow from £21 billion in 2013 to £57 billion by 20251, the company is responding with a strategic program of expansion and upgrades to accommodation, catering, sport and entertainment facilities. However, remote visibility of its assets and energy consumption posed a challenge to the Group.

At Park Holiday’s Carlton Meres holiday park on the Suffolk coast, the installation of a new Low Voltage (LV) distribution board provided an opportunity to reassess its requirements and introduce a more digitally connected approach.

With the site maintenance team pressing for more power at site level and Group personnel unable to access real time data on the park’s energy consumption, current and other parameters, the need for data acquisition and connectivity was clear.

“With the increasing pressure on energy pricing in the UK, Park Holidays wanted greater real time visibility and insight on how their assets were performing” says Reeve Carter, National Sales Manager UK from ABB. “The solution we installed does just that; it gives the team insight and knowledge that will help them to save as much energy as they can and keep their costs as low as possible, without impacting the overall guest experience.”  

Commissioned in Q1 of 2020, this was the first switchboard in the UK to be designed and built with ABB Ability™ Energy & Asset Manager integrated. The ABB Ability™ Energy & Asset Manager optimizes energy usage, achieving savings of up to 20 percent on utility bills and up to 30 percent on overall operational costs.  ABB worked with a local panel builder and consultant on the new low voltage distribution board, equipping it with Emax 2 and Tmax XT circuit breakers.

Since installation, the technology is already providing the site team and Group with greater visibility and a common dataset on which to base forecasts and decisions about future power requirements. The electrical operations team has found this particularly useful in monitoring real time power and peak demand, as well as reviewing data on cable size to enable optimization and manage future power demand.

“The competitiveness of ABB’s solution puts us in a strong position to extend the model, helping Park Holidays to connect our other UK locations,” says Warrick Brew, Park Holidays Electrical Operations Manager. “We are also exploring the potential to integrate other facilities management data onto the ABB Ability™ platform as we believe that the Energy & Asset Manager can help us to meet our sustainability commitments and achieve further cost savings across our estate”

To learn more about ABB Ability™, visit https://new.abb.com/about/our-businesses/electrification/abb-ability