Energy waste in a quick service restaurant is worth the owner’s attention
Cost of saved energy directly adds to QSR owner's profit
How to prevent plant stoppage through energy management
A mere 1 month after an Energy Management Information System (EMIS) project was postponed ‘due to other priorities’ our client’s plant has stopped for 3 days. About $500,000 lost in pre-holidays food product sales. Not to count costs of avoidable urgent repairs and value of lost trust from clients. Why did plant stop? Boiler [...]
Energy management stands behind better stock performance
Companies with strong energy management demonstrate higher performance at the stock market. Do not take my word for it, here is a snapshot of stock performance of a well-known leader in energy management 3M USA (US:MMM, black) compared to Dow Jones US Chemicals Index (XX:DJUSCH, blue) over last 5 years as presented at Market Watch. [...]
Simple payback can cost you profits and what is the better way ratio
Simple payback period is routinely used as an ultimate ratio when it comes to selecting between energy projects. This practice may cost your company money in missed opportunities. Simple payback period (SPP) is the simplest way to assess profitability of an investment project. Simply divide first year cost by first year savings and you get [...]
Options to reduce Global Adjustment for Class A: natural gas generator, batteries and mathematics, curtailing
What’s the best way to fight global adjustment cost? Omitting numerous details, three options are available: behind the meter generation, batteries and curtailing. Below is a quick comparison of pros, cons and risks of these solutions. Natural gas generators – switch to own source of power during peak hours Vendor promise Install a behind the meter [...]
Fighting Global Adjustment with batteries and mathematics
At a recent energy conference and tradeshow, #ESX2108, among other interesting presentations, one caught my attention - a serious approach offered by Peak Power Inc to reducing Global Adjustment charges by switching demand during peak hours to huge batteries. They consider peak chasing a mathematical game, and rightly so. Peak Power uses big data and machine learning to [...]
How to help CFO approve your energy project and keep healthy margins?
Corporations routinely require energy projects to meet a 2 year simple payback threshold, which is another way of requesting a 50% return. Same corporations rarely enjoy returns in excess of 10% in their core business. Are CFOs mean to energy projects, plain stupid, or what? - Unlikely. Slow thinkers do not make it to corner offices. [...]
What is kWh worth at your plant?
A trivial question, which does not have a simple answer without the context. Consider a plant that in the last month used 1,000,000 kWh to produce 10,000 units and paid $15,000 for electricity. Does kWh cost $0.15? Is energy cost per unit $1.5? Yes, No and Maybe. Cost or value of a kWh depends on [...]
How can an energy manager travel in time and space to impress CFO?
Which energy manager does CFO know by first name? Hands-on? Watchful? Strategic? A Hands-On energy manager walks the floor daily to personally check consumption of every machine. He is in one place at a time. A Watchful energy manager installs meters to check real-time energy performance. He monitors several machines at the same time. A [...]
How to separate honest energy efficiency vendors from snake oil salesmen?
If you are a plant manager I bet that scores of energy efficiency vendors call and email you daily. All of them want to sell their hardware and most promise extreme profitability. Will you choose a project based on salesman promise alone? If you want to quickly navigate the sea of energy efficiency offers without [...]