enterprise energy management

A rapidly increasing corporate focus on energy/environmental management has been driven globally by the following.  ENVINTA's products are well placed to help you address these drivers.

	Global deregulation of energy supply, including competitive procurement and outsourcing of contract management. This has made energy a focus of CFOs.  Deregulation will offer potential for global procurement of most energy forms within three years.
	Focus of businesses on continuous improvement in all aspects of their business, including a focus on energy efficiency (for first time since 2nd oil crisis in 1979/80. Note: oil prices in recent times have been at their highest levels for a decade).  Energetics has demonstrated that energy is not only a manageable cost, but that effective management of energy may have substantial impact on other business-critical issues.
	Global interest in greenhouse mitigation following the Kyoto protocol, resulting in a need by multinational corporations for global management and reporting of energy. The potential for $10 to 20 billion annual global carbon trading by 2008 will only be possible with a robust system for verification, management and aggregation of transactions.
	Rapidly escalating environmental demands on companies to report pollutant inventories and provide public disclosure of environmental performance.
	Enterprise integration of information beyond financial data, and the general trend towards management of all aspects of the business using key performance indicators and other physical and empirical measures.
	Advent of the Internet, allowing for the first time provision of global service for multi-national corporations using common tools delivered from low cost non-intrusive platforms.

The outlook for energy strongly suggests that professional management disciplines are needed to control energy usage effectively and achieve sustained improvements in energy efficiency.  Substantial opportunities for cost effective improvements in energy performance are still being ignored, because businesses do not have continuous improvement systems capable of grasping the opportunities and sustaining the benefits gained.

 

Energy management (EM) has been typically built around a technical energy audit.  These identify 5% to 10% of quick savings attributable to the elimination of waste. As there is no systematic process to implement these findings, the easy work (low capital cost) gets done, and the rest is shelved. After some time, energy management is seen as complete and is forgotten, either because the “Champion” pushing these actions throughout an organization has moved onto another task, or because energy prices temporarily drop. Some energy savings from capital works may be sustained if the projects are maintained, but much of the initial savings are lost. Then in another 3 to 7 years the process is repeated.  Audits generally are done as a snapshot based on limited quality data (incomplete, inaccurate or out of date), and ignore critical aspects of energy management, such as operations and maintenance procedures, people issues and communications.

Audits rarely engage senior management. Actions stemming from audits usually have to be justified on a project-by-project basis, which ultimately ensures that sustained savings are not achieved. Improvement of energy performance requires an integrated management approach, based on systematic and continuous improvement methodology. This would integrate the development and application of process technology; better collection, processing and use of energy information; as well as the management of all other aspects, including people and financial issues.

The significant improvements in the safety, environmental and quality performance achieved in leading businesses in recent times has been underpinned by the application of effective management systems. 

 

To put this in the converse form: no company has ever achieved consistent improvement in any aspect of its business without systematic and consistent management focus and without systems to maintain that focus.  The same applies to energy performance.  Successful energy management requires organizations to address all key areas of their management and operational practices to achieve continuous improvement. 

 

The measurement, analysis and reporting of energy information is an integral part of systematic energy management.  It has also been a major stumbling block to better energy management.  The reporting of energy data sourced from the many dispersed sites of a modern global organization is not a trivial exercise, and the management of energy within a modern organization needs a balance between central oversight and local management.

 

Then there has been the difficulty of getting the processed information out to the staff, contractors and others throughout the organization who need the information to improve energy management. Historically, energy management information systems (EMIS) have been characterized by their high cost of ownership, the lack of consistent reporting, long delays in acquiring data and incomplete datasets.

An effective EMIS must address the following challenges:

	Gather dispersed and disparate production, energy use (both billing and meter) and budget energy data from multiple sites, multiple energy suppliers and different types of energy suppliers.
	Validate the data and manage missing or erroneous data.
	Convert the raw data into usable management information, particularly meaningful Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
	Generate meaningful reports that include the analysis of trends and exceptions.
	Distribute the analysis and reports internally (across multiple sites) and externally, and in a timely fashion.

The first major problem we solve, via One-2-Five Energy, is to provide organizations with an overview of the quality and efficacy of existing management systems for energy and provide a simple gap analysis between current corporate practice and industry best practice.

 

Having identified the key issues for remediation and given some indication of the “size of the prize”, the next major problem we solve, via ENTERPRIZE.EM, is a cost effective EMIS for making sense of energy and environmental consumption data across multiple business units, currencies, geographies, suppliers, energy sources and business activities. Our partners will provide the systems integration, project management and expert advice to bring valuable end-to-end solutions to our customers.

 

The “prize” for corporations is most often dollar savings of as much as 15% of energy bills, which depending on the industry sector, can equate to tens of millions of dollars each year.  Our aim, through our enabling technologies, is to lock in process, systems and discipline changes within a client organization that drive recurring annual savings.

 

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