Dubai, UAE, 11 November 2018: “Pumps are at the heart of your facilities,” said Tolga Candan, Business Development Manager, Energy optimisation and Retrofitting, Grundfos, who stressed that day in and day out, pumps are vital to business operations. “But they come with a price,” he added. “Not so much in purchase, but in the daily operation of the pumps. In fact, 85 % of the total costs of your pumps relates to the energy used to run the pumps. And there is money to be saved.”

This, he said, is especially true for retrofitting existing building stock, in the move to improve energy efficiency. While integrating LED lights can have small impact and integration of renewables, such as wind or solar power, is a more long-term solution, retrofitting pumps offers strong impact that could be implemented in the short-term. “A 90 kW pump costs roughly around AED 100,000 but its energy consumption, if uncontrolled, is around AED 350,000-400,000 every year,” he said. “So, it may be nothing to buy it, but the price you are going to pay for it every year is massive, so the price of a pump is nothing compared to its energy consumption.” In the Middle East region, Candan said, because many building projects were rushed, pumps were not selected in the most efficient manner, which offers a lot of opportunities to educate the market on how energy can be saved and its potential paybacks.

To address gaps in the market, Candan said Grundfos conducts an Energy Check, based on ISO14414, which is a complimentary assessment of a facility’s pumps to help unlock the actual savings potential on the operational costs of the pumps. “Any installation with old, oversized, inefficient or unsuitable pumps is likely to hide this kind of savings,” he said. Candan said that, so far, the company has received positive feedback for its energy checks and has completed more than 200 assessments with public and private sector clients.

Candan also highlighted Indigo Tower, one of the company’s latest retrofit projects, where they were able to save 80% on the pumps’ energy consumption, achieved a payback of 0.7 years and received three nominations for the Retrofit Project of the Year. Candan said that the market has evolved to have greater awareness of the importance of retrofitting, largely driven by the UAE government’s leadership position in the region. “Instead of us trying to push the solution,” he said, “now authorities are inviting us to tell them about our solutions.”

Hannah Jo Uy is Assistant Editor at Climate Control Middle East magazine. She may be contacted at hannah@cpi-industry.com