Roadstone Demand Response Case Study

Roadstone Ltd, part of building materials group CRH, is one of the globe’s major suppliers of construction aggregates, ready-mixed concrete, and a host of other related products. It operates from more than 50 quarries throughout the Republic of Ireland.

When the company went public in Ireland in 1949, operational costs were much less of a concern. However, over the past decade, running the vast network of energy-intensive machines needed to extract and prepare new materials has become increasingly costly. Rather than increasing prices, Roadstone committed to reducing overheads by becoming more energy efficient.

Roadstone recognised that with such a sizeable energy spend, even reducing its consumption by a few percentage points could mean huge cost and carbon savings. Energy manager Kevin Donovan began the process by applying innovation and targeting ‘low-hanging fruit’: overseeing lighting conversions across all sites, instituting timers on heaters, and even training workers to a higher level so that they would less fuel.

The ingenuity of Donovan’s team has resulted in year-on-year energy savings of 3-5% since 2007, but with fewer remaining opportunities to save energy at Roadstone’s facilities, the business needed a way to continue meeting its reduction targets. Roadstone participated in a winter peak-load reduction scheme, which earned it revenue for curtailing its energy usage during peak hours. However, the programme was discontinued in 2013, leaving the business eager to find another way to earn revenue through curtailment.

Enel X offered the perfect solution to Roadstone’s challenges, unlocking much-needed revenue with more flexibility than the business’ previous curtailment scheme. Although most of the eight sites initially participating in demand response curtail just a few hundred kilowatts, the cumulative reduction provides Roadstone a sizeable revenue stream. Moreover, there are no economic penalties for opting out if production cannot be stopped, leaving the company free to put its business needs first.

Over the past six years, Roadstone has reduced its total corporate energy spend by at least one percent every year, averaging closer to 3% in annual spend reduction. In 2014, the business’ unique focus on energy management and cross-group collaboration made it the first quarry ever nominated for a Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland award.

Roadstone’s eagerness to increase its demand response participation is boosted by the positive feedback the company has heard from the sites currently enrolled. Site engineers are pleased with the revenue they get back from demand response, and haven’t felt that the scheme disrupts their production at all.

"What most energy managers in the industry don’t understand is that you’ve got three or four pillars of energy use at your site. Demand response only requires you to turn one of those off at a time."

— Kevin Donovan, energy manager, Roadstone

With the pressure still on to post 3-5% energy cost reductions each year, Donovan is looking to implement demand-side response at every site possible. Thus far, demand response has single-handedly met Donovan’s savings targets at each participating site, making it a one-stop solution for Roadstone’s reduction goals next year.