Energy Savings

Energy Efficiency Loans help Roberts Mart shrink its energy bills by £129,000.

Following expansion, Roberts Mart sold its main premises, a Victorian mill in central Leeds in 2004. As a result, it was able to develop a purpose built factory
to accommodate its expanding business.

Built on a tight budget, the new factory included light fittings which were cheap to install, but expensive to run and not very versatile. This became particularly obvious after the company moved from a seven-day to a five-day week.

We found that when we switched the lights on after the weekend there were quite a few which didn’t work,” explains the Sales Director, Ben Roberts. “The original light fittings weren’t really designed to be switched on and off. We occasionally had power surges and power cuts in the factory which resulted in the lights turning themselves off, and when power was restored many of the lamps would not reignite. As they were all in the ceiling the only way we could change the bulbs was by hiring a cherry picker to get to them at great expense.They cost £40 each to replace, and there were over 100 fittings in the factory.

The company was also in the process of installing a new eight-colour printing press. This gave it the opportunity to review the way in which it dries the inks on newly printed packaging. The existing gas burners were costing about £6,500 a month to operate. This made it an expensive solution which would also struggle to meet the increased requirements of the new press due to be installed. A Carbon Trust loan of £93,000 enabled Roberts Mart to improve the lighting, while a second loan of £195,000 allowed them to install a regenerative thermal oxidiser (RTO), which uses thermal oil to dry the packaging.