During a recent meeting with prospect's CFO this exact question has come up: How much energy will energy audit save our bakery? A fair question coming from CFO: his job is to ensure that all investments generate value for the company. A direct question deserves a direct answer: Energy Audit will save you nothing. [...]
In Energy Management the key word is management, not energy. So, all rules of management apply. Rule #1: it all starts from the top. This rules determines everything. 1. Effective Energy Management must have a C-level champion Practically speaking, if none of the top guns cares about energy management or at least energy efficiency, nothing [...]
A perfectly energy efficient LED lighting may waste energy and hurt sales when not designed with energy management in mind. Is Energy Efficiency the same as Energy Management? Energy Efficiency (EE) is about technological solutions that use less energy to produce the same result. In this case, LED lighting is more efficient than fluorescent since [...]
My friend Andrew once learned that he was paying twice as much for electricity than his neighbour across the street. Similar house, similar family, similar lifestyle, same utility ... but neighbour paid $200 a month, while Andrew paid $400. So Andrew decided to tackle the issue. He invited a utility rep to do a walk [...]
Simple energy metrics can be useless or worse Our client, an industrial bakery, monitored natural gas burned in the oven in m3 per kg of shipped bread. A fair metric, right? Just read the meter, take production report, divide consumption by production - done. They have got nowhere with this metric when it came to [...]
How valuable would it be for your business to cut the energy use of an industrial refrigeration plant by 30%, while still supporting the same load? To do so with a short payback? What if incentives halved the payback? This is what we are doing. GreenQ Partners has completed a pilot project at a refrigeration [...]
A new online program has been launched by University of Denver Colorado. It's been reported that over 33,000 students from around the world have enrolled. The course is offered free of charge through Coursera. The Fundamentals of Global Energy Business course provides students with an introduction to the business of primary energy production. The class examines the [...]
Steam is one of the most expensive forms of energy at most manufacturing plants. Powerful boilers produce lots and lots of it. Surely a couple of small leaks cost next to nothing, right? Here is a simple way to assess what damage a leak makes to the bottom line. Idea of this post came from [...]
Lighting retrofits in industrial environments are known to be short-payback energy management solutions due to significant energy savings and incentives. In the case described below, the cost of a massive energy waste prior to retrofit was immaterial, when non-energy benefits were considered. Avoided cost of wasted energy was dwarfed by non-energy operational savings resulting in [...]
This post continues the Learning from the Big series about the ways big industrial companies of Ontario deal with energy management. I spoke with Michael Cortese, Energy Manager of ArcelorMittal Dofasco, located in Hamilton. Role of utilities in your business? Utilities are the major cost; they comprise 20%–25% of the direct costs of production. The [...]
