Moto Hospitality Ltd & Future Motors
38% energy and cost savings in first year. ROI in less than three years.
And that was just the beginning.
Providing travellers with a safe place to eat, rest and refuel
Moto Hospitality Ltd (known as Moto) is the “commute and journey home” motorway services company, focused on giving customers the best possible experience whilst taking its environmental and energy usage responsibilities very seriously. For the last 56 years, Moto has been providing travellers with a safe place to eat, rest and refuel, and currently operates 59 locations across the UK. They are leading the industry in the electric vehicle (EV) revolution, provide powerfully fast broadband, and continue to look for genuinely innovative ways to drive down their environmental impact.
A need to significantly reduce costs and carbon footprint
With concerns about their rising energy costs and escalating carbon footprint in their retail and hospitality sites, Future Motors were approached by Moto's facilities manager. Anticipating the financial impact of price rises they wanted to take their sustainability obligations to the next level. They wanted to mitigate costs and significantly reduce carbon emissions – the main cause of the problems being that they had no effective control over their buildings’ electric motors. They were using legacy (yet common) technology that was difficult to control and inherently inefficient.
Smart motor systems
Moto saw the benefit in piloting our smart patented high rotor pole switched reluctance motor with advanced device physics, combined with a software controller that provides algorithmic control and intelligence for monitoring and dynamic management, driving unparalleled efficiency. Together with our app, which would also let them remotely monitor and control the smart motors, Moto could dynamically manage their environments, take full control of their air handling units and maximise air quality, whilst consuming less energy.
Donnington Park marked out for pilot
First, we identified their Donnington Park service station as a potential location for a pilot scheme. This was followed by a site survey and inspection of their thirteen onsite motors. By taking a closer look at their function, the environment they operated in, and the volume of air they needed to circulate, we calculated the savings we envisaged Moto making.
- Completed the site survey in 4 – 5 hours
- Calculated savings of 29% per annum
- Measured existing motors in situ to determine electricity consumption
- Installed 13 new motors in 3 – 4 days over a rolling basis (to reduce downtime)
- Each motor only took approximately four hours to install, due to the retrofit opportunity our motors represent.
Alternative efficient motors are unable to be retro fitted, and therefore require a refurbishment of the associated air handling units. This is considerably more expensive and can create up to two extra days downtime, further increasing costs.
Pilot success - longer term savings higher than predicted
Minimum downtime, savings that far exceeded our predictions, and better air quality for their retail workers and visitors. The pilot exceeded expectation and paved the way to bigger and better things.
| Pilot – 6 weeks |
| · Delivered cost and energy savings of 38% per annum (9% more than predicted)
· Full ROI achievable in 2.6 years (quicker than predicted and at historic electricity prices) · Saved 134,000 kilowatt hours of electricity · Saved 52 tonnes of carbon · The ability to use a new BMS system to actively control air movement · Lower ongoing maintenance costs |
More locations added in a phased rollout
Rolling out additional phases was an obvious next step and they were implemented in a short programme.
| Phase 1 – Over two months | Phase 2 – Over three months |
| · 14 locations
· Installed 97 motors · Saved 1.2million kilowatt hours of electricity over the course of a year · Saved 328 tonnes of carbon · Minimum downtime and disruption · Exceptionally high-quality installation and reduced ongoing maintenance |
· 27 locations
· Installed 95 motors · Saved 700,000 kilowatt hours of electricity over the course of a year · Saved 147 tonnes of carbon · Minimum downtime and disruption · Exceptionally high-quality installation and reduced ongoing maintenance |
The ROI over both phases is projected at 2.4 years but is likely to be significantly quicker due to increased energy costs.
What happened next?
Moto were so happy with the quality of the installation, and the results it produced, they have introduced a dynamic environmental control by upgrading their building management systems (BMS).
This has had an even bigger impact on driving down energy usage: increasing their overall savings to 50%.
In summary, they are delivering optimum air quality for their staff and customers, have full control over the internal environment in each of their locations and have materially reduced energy usage and carbon.
Darren Spruce, Facilities Manager, Moto said: “At Moto we are always looking for way to drive efficiency, drive down carbon and provide the highest quality (optimal) environment for our staff and customers – partnering with Future Motors allowed us to make a significant impact on our carbon footprint, deliver bottom line savings for our business, and generally enable us to embrace the future of facilities management.”
“Our experience of using Future Motors was that the project was delivered on time, to budget, and with minimal disruption to our locations.”