Today, we have another exciting lesson with a lot of interesting quantifications for you!
Especially since the war in Ukraine we saw how increasing energy costs can curb research.
However, electricity impacts are not straight visible and complex to understand.
This is why I thought I let's resolve these difficulties!
Today's Lesson: Energy Consumption
Understanding electricity in the laboratory
Number Of The Day
According to an assessment conducted by a colleague and long-time expert in sustainability, the energy consumption of ultra-low temperature freezers increases by 5% every year. This is partly due to wear and tear, but in many cases, it is also because of insufficient maintenance, such as cleaning and defrosting.
5%
Sharing Ideas With Others
With rising energy prices, we are becoming painfully aware of how much energy research requires.
However, electricity consumption is not a mainstream topic. Therefore, let's start with a brief overview of how much energy our instruments actually consume:
Listed is the energy consumption of a few laboratory instruments. Please take these numbers with a big grain of salt! Not just vary numbers throughout producers and years but they also depend on use. In fact, for drying ovens measured values varied between 0.1 - 28 kWh/day.
Explaining Consumption
Nevertheless, we often hear that lab spaces consume 3 to 5 times the amount of energy as office spaces - but why?
Apart from the consumption level itself, here are three important aspects to consider:
Operating times
All cold storage units and many analytical instruments run 24/7. Unless you fall asleep in front of the TV, only your fridge runs 24/7 at home.
Equipment density
Can vary significantly but on average, wet labs have a high density of equipment—just think of all the scales, water baths, multiple PCR machines, hoods, table centrifuges, etc.
Working hours
Difficult to generalize but we all know that laboratories, whether in academia or diagnostic labs, operate more than 8 hours a day.
This graph is from a study conducted on the campus of the University of Stanford showing how much energy lab equipment requires – averaged throughout multiple laboratories.
Hidden Culprits
In fact, the largest energy consumers often go unnoticed.
A) Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC): Since laboratories require a high number of air exchanges, the already high energy consumption for cooling and heating is further increased.
B) Servers. With our growing use of the internet, including cloud storage, computing, and AI, servers have become one of the biggest impacts of all, especially since they run 24/7.
This graph is an approximation of annual energy consumption values that were created in a study conducted on the campus of the University of Stanford. It involved 220 buildings and concluded that overall nearly 50 million kWh per year were used. HVAC is very difficult to standardize but normally makes up about 50% of energy consumption.
Of course, dry lab research has a significant footprint, you can read more about the impact of bioinformatics here.
Understanding The Nuances Of Energy Consumption
To understand where you can save on energy, it is crucial to be precise:
A centrifuge uses energy to move the rotor, for cooling, and in some cases, for creating a vacuum. However, it's essential to consider that the initial acceleration consumes more energy than maintaining a certain velocity.
This means: first and foremost, consider when to cool down your centrifuge. Then, whether you can use a smaller centrifuge for your spin. Finally, whether you can reducing spinning times & velocities.
By the same token, a shaker needs energy for shaking and heating. However, heating from 5-10°C might not require the same energy as from 40-45°C.
When thinking about fume hoods we encounter another important factor: their set-up. Whether you have a constant vs variable flow hood will determine how much energy it consumes and how you can save energy – read more here.
Finally, room temperature and maintenance (especially removing dust) are two factors that will increase energy consumption independent of the producer you buy from.
Depicted is the variability of energy consumption depending on lab-type. For example, consider that a chemical might have many more fume hoods. This is from a report “Green Labs – Lab Energy 2019” from the university of Cambridge. The Life Science Department was located in York and the Chemistry Department in Manchester.
Two Challenges
You might wonder why producers don't just reduce energy consumption further each year?
On the one hand, you wouldn't buy their equipment if they did. We want quick cooling/heating times and powerful lasers in our microscopes.
On the other hand, producers must adhere to regulations. DIN and EU regulations require lab-grade equipment to perform at a certain level. These regulations could involve temperature fluctuations, speeds, or safety.
This is why we either need to be ok with gradual improvements or hope for technological innovation, such as LED vs. mercury in microscopy or Peltier elements for heating/cooling.
Applying The Knowledge
Even in the high-performance segment, there are significant differences in energy usage. Therefore, once you know what kind of equipment (size, features, etc.) you need, double-check the electricity consumption.
Also, be smart about your lab. Some colleagues found that lab-grade fridges use more energy and are more expensive than conventional ones (but check whether you need special safety features!). Also, energy intensity decreases with the size of a freezer. I.e., if you can collaborate and buy larger freezers (although door opening times then become even more crucial).
Finally, proper maintenance is key to keeping energy consumption low. Cleaning filters and coils, as well as keeping software up to date, will go a long way in reducing electricity use and avoiding failures and breakdowns.
Upcoming Lesson:
Making Sense Of Scope 1 & 2
Asking You
How many percent of total plug load does lab equipment consume on university campuses?
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