Canadian Dog Sniffs Compressed Air Leaks
When you have a situation to resolve at you plant - you can find a quick reference or advice at Plant Services . Site holds an extensive collection of short articles on various topics around plant management. Materials are free, though some advertisement comes along. While searching for somewhat scarce resources about industrial energy efficiency I came across an [...]
Energy Management Books And Resources
If you aim to get the most value from energy management, lots of materials are available to help. Through years of search and study I have come across several sources that I can honestly recommend. A practical book, written in simple language and containing lots of energy wisdom - "The Industrial Energy Harvest: Managing Energy from top down", by [...]
To be approved an energy project must start with business goals, not with engineering tools
To be effective energy management project must start with goals to be achieved, not tools and technologies available. Managing energy has no meaning if it does not contribute to what your plant is doing. However profitable a project is, if it does not contribute to production, quality or safety, it will always be assessed on the basis of a [...]
Simple payback hides risks of energy projects
Simple payback is a misleading financial ratio. Conventional wisdom says that short payback is a sign of a better project. Wrong. The goal of an investment is not to get your money back, but to make invested money make more money with minimum risk. Simple payback does not even consider risk of not getting money back, forget making more money [...]
Exact energy savings number is always a lie
Every time I hear somebody say "project saved $123,456" I look if person's nose has grown a bit. Obviously such person does not understand the first thing about savings: energy savings is consumption that did not happen, nobody can measure something that did not happened. Energy savings are never exact, always an estimate. Always. “Project saved 123,456 kWh” is [...]
Math will not protect you from mistakes in calculating energy savings
When assessing energy savings, the use of math is not a substitute to engineering common sense. Math is an enhancement tool: if engineer has made in error – math will not correct it; math will make it bigger. Never mind just calculations, statistical analysis or even artificial intelligence, if result does not make engineering sense - look for an [...]
Use of average electricity cost can fail your project for CFO
Use of average electricity cost can be misleading when assessing financial impact of energy efficiency measures. What counts is the cost of the last kWh used that is comprised off Global Adjustment (Ontario), demand charges (kW) and energy cost. It matters if avoided consumption contributed to consumption during monthly peak demand or not. Faults of using average become visible when [...]