Energy saving solutions for business and homes.
Energy Management Solutions to maximize energy savings.
In this article I have discussed about energy management and the steps to follow to implement key energy management solutions to maximize energy savings in businesses and homes.
Let’s first see what energy management solution is.
What is energy management solution?
The basic goal of energy management solutions is to improve energy performance of business enterprises or homes by efficient energy use to reduce costs and improve environmental sustainability.
Energy management solutions can be broadly defined as means to monitor and control use of energy by using systems and procedures to minimize energy consumption for producing goods and providing services. This would in effect minimize output costs (energy costs) and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Why energy management is important?
Managing energy is most important because a judicious and systematic energy management approach gives the following benefits:
> Reduce energy consumption and maximize energy savings;
> Maximize profits of a company by saving energy costs;
> Increases awareness about energy use;
> Reduces exposure to rising energy prices;
> Reduces greenhouse gas emissions;
> Reduces carbon footprint;
How to maximize energy savings
Although the requirements and practices may differ from sector to sector the core principles of managing energy that apply to businesses are also applicable for homes.
Energy management solutions broadly involve implementing the energy saving solutions as listed below which would minimize energy consumption and maximize energy savings:
1. Establish a baseline
The reason of this step is to establish the trend of your energy use in absolute terms i.e. to know how much energy is being used, where and for what purpose. This would help to create a baseline against which to measure progress and improvement against your objectives and targets.
Ideally the past three years’ energy bills and sub-meter data (if available) can be used to establish this trend. Tracking of both quantity of energy used and its cost, is important.
The total amount of electricity and other fuels used in the year ending before implementation of the steps for managing energy could be the simplest level of baseline.
2. Identify the opportunities or ideas for improvement
The opportunities or ideas that might basically help to improve energy performance may be identified from the following 3 key sources:
> Energy audits: The energy audit would evaluate the actual performance of the systems and equipment against their designed performance level or against the best available technology. The difference between the actual and designed performance would give you the potential for energy savings;
> Suggestions from employees: Energy saving opportunities can be identified through discussions and suggestions from employees. The employees can come up with innovative energy-saving ideas in the workplace in regular staff meetings;
> Review successful ideas in other organization: Successful ideas from other organizations can also help to identify energy saving potential of your own organization;
3. Establish Goals
Once the opportunities for improving energy performance have been assessed, it should help to establish the achievable and measurable performance goals at the appropriate organizational levels.
4. Create Action Plan
After the goals are established, your organization should be prepared to develop an action plan to ensure a systematic process to implement energy performance improvement measures to achieve the goals. The steps below outline a basic starting point for creating an action plan which will form the basis of energy management solutions:
> Analyze energy data: Review energy bills to know how much your organization pays for gas, electricity and fuel oil;
> Determine significant energy uses: Identify where most of the organization’s energy is being used. Once you know your most significant energy use areas (i.e. processes, systems, equipment, etc), focus most of your efforts on those uses which have high potential for saving energy;
> Identify effective practices for improvement: Create an energy management solution team who will identify successful and effective practices to reduce energy use and implement those cost-saving measures;
> Gain management support: Obtain management approval to implement changes to the current practices in the identified areas which will eventually improve energy efficiency of your organization;
For gaining management support for providing energy management services it is essential to increase the awareness of managers at all level;
> Motivate your staff: Keep your staff motivated to achieve energy cost savings in the workplace. Offering incentives to involved staff for improving energy efficiency in the workplace may be one of the ways to create interest in energy initiatives and promote a sense of ownership among the employees;
5. Evaluate progress and ongoing improvement
Review progress of the actions for energy management solutions by comparing current performance with the established goals.
To measure this, gather the current energy use data and compare the results to the set goals to determine accomplishments. The outcome would show the effectiveness of your action plan which would help you to make informed decisions about any future actions, if needed for energy performance improvement.
Frequently asked questions
Now that I have explained what is energy management solutions to maximize energy savings let me also address some of the related queries often made by people.
Why is energy management important?
Energy management is important because it enables you to control and reduce your organization’s or home’s energy consumption to reduce costs which is on the rise.
What are the steps of energy management solutions?
6 key steps of an energy management strategy are,
Step 1: Establish the trend of your energy use;
Step 2: Evaluate actual performance through energy audit;
Step 3: Identify opportunities for improving energy performance;
Step 4: Review successful ideas in other organizations or homes;
Step 5: Establish achievable and measurable performance goal;
Step 6: Develop an action plan;
What is energy management and its objectives?
Energy management can be broadly defined as means to monitor and control use of energy by using systems and procedures to minimize energy consumption.
The objectives of energy management are to conserve consumption, minimize energy costs, reduce greenhouse gas and carbon emissions.
Conclusion
It needs no mention that to improve energy performance in industries or homes it is essential to have effective energy management solutions. It is a proven fact that organizations that have implemented energy saving solutions judiciously, have achieved about two to three times more annual energy savings than the enterprises without any energy management system.
It is hoped that this article would enhance the understanding of the enterprises with regard to energy saving solutions and encourage them to take effective measures to manage their energy uses to improve energy performance, productivity and environmental sustainability.
