The current economic climate and new government legislation has forced many businesses to consider innovative ways to reduce costs – especially those incurred from energy. Lisa Gingell, director of t-mac Technologies, explains
The introduction of the government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme, which is aimed at cutting emissions among the largest companies, has meant that energy inefficient companies now stand to lose even more.
Initially billed as an ‘emissions trading scheme’, one of the important incentives encouraging compliance with the CRC was removed when the decision was taken not to redistribute the scheme’s revenue among the better performers. This move effectively turned the CRC simply into another tax.
A wake-up call
However, this does not mean the CRC should be ignored. Instead, it should be seen as a wake-up call. Making the adjustments that ensure a business conforms to the CRC scheme will not only reduce energy costs and carbon emissions, but also demonstrate a serious approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR).
By their very nature, electrical engineering and manufacturing sites tend to use high amounts of energy to function, and by not knowing or keeping on top of this, energy use undoubtedly leads to unnecessary energy waste. So there is a clear need to take control and comply with the government legislation which can only be done by gaining a better understanding of where energy is being wasted and how this can be reduced.
Over the years t-mac Technologies has helped businesses to identify major energy reduction opportunities by isolating ‘hidden’ energy wasters such as poorly performing equipment, and machines sitting in idle and inefficient operations – all of which drain resources. Unnecessary lighting or heating and air conditioning fighting against each other are other culprits of this waste of energy and money.
t-mac provides clients with hardware and software that allows for energy metering and analysis to work in tandem with building controls. Ultimately this helps to identify inefficiencies in energy consumption and actively control them. Such a system provides simple management techniques to cut carbon emissions and utilities expenditure, meet internal and external energy reduction targets, and comply with government legislation such as the CRC.
A starting point
The first step is to identify energy inefficient practices within the business, for which metering and monitoring is key. Mains and sub-metering with a system like t-mac enables companies to gather real time data on how much energy is being consumed and in which area. This information can be used to identify energy intensive equipment and help an organisation understand where energy is being wasted.
Monitoring equipment performance and building conditions also provides an insight into how the building or piece of machinery is being operated as well as maintained – both of which are culprits of energy wastage. From this monitoring data, a business can gain valuable insight into the ‘reasons’ behind the inefficient metering data and the potential ‘solutions’ for reducing energy consumption.
Once metering and monitoring is in place, the software should provide all the management tools, analysis programmes and alerting applications required by the business to identify and eradicate inefficient energy practices.
The t-mac online software suite works in tandem with the hardware and provides a single portal for businesses to analyse, identify, quantify and report on energy inefficiencies throughout a site or multiple sites. Once identified, alerts can be configured against profiles, fault codes and machine performance such as vibration and temperature, and operations, ensuring users are alerted immediately when undesirable energy inefficient activities takes place. This enables businesses to eliminate energy wastage early, which therefore provides opportunities for long term savings.
Control and education
Control is of course integral to effective and proactive energy management. Without it businesses cannot actually reduce energy consumption and waste. For the most effective control, it is important to think about what you want your equipment to do and what you want to achieve in order to align machine operating hours with business opening times and high/low energy tariffs.
Having a robust energy management system in place is only part of the puzzle. Education of staff on ‘energy use 101’ is the final piece of the jigsaw. This is a critical component if a business wants to achieve long term environmental and cost saving objectives as ultimately, staff will become responsible for using and operating the buildings and equipment on a day to day basis.
So even with the best strategy and the most up to date technology, the ‘human factor’ can be quick to undo an organisation’s best carbon emission and cost saving attempts. Therefore, staff buy-in is imperative to achieve the overall desired outcomes.
t-mac’s dashboards can provide an answer as they take real time energy and environmental data and put it on display to educate building occupiers and machine operatives on the company’s energy management activities and carbon reduction commitments.
By making the most of this technology, businesses can feel confident about the future and equally confident they will not be hit with an unexpected ‘tax bill’ due to their carbon emissions.
Businesses should view the new government legislation not as an unwanted challenge but rather as a welcomed incentive which affords them the chance to re-evaluate the way they manage their energy use, increasing savings and benefiting the company in the long term.
