What can be farther apart than ancient Chinese wisdom and modern energy management? Since wisdom is universal, let's find out. Ancient Chinese proverb says that road of a thousand miles starts with the first step. We all heard this one. What did Chinese mean by this? A common Western interpretation of this proverb is that [...]
Even many C-levels today agree agrees that energy efficiency is important, still too often too little is done. How can this situation be changed? This 2003 article - Overcoming Barriers to Effective Energy Management in Industrial Settings - names several barriers which I list below with my comments: Lack of Organizational Commitment to energy efficiency [...]
A bottom up approach to energy cost reduction is a path of heroes: long, hard and massively ineffective, because it requires convincing managers on the way up. The top->bottom approach, on the other hand, is a simple and powerful approach known for decades as management: set goals, allocate resources and assign responsibilities. Now instead of [...]
More energy data is better, right? Data shows what's happening, so we should have lots of it to manager machines, right? Not necessarily. Although various meters are becoming cheaper by day, too many of them may hurt your business instead of helping to manage it. When driving, do you really need to know the exact [...]
Proper analysis brings energy heroes front and center. Can this be you? The graph shows results of statistical analysis of electricity consumption at a frozen food warehouse performed in accordance with recommendation of International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP). Blue dotted line represents a cumulative sum of differences between actual and predicted consumption. Difference [...]
An old engineering joke says that if it moves, but should not - use duct tape, if does not move, but should - WD-40. Though every joke contains a joke, this formula can be applied to a walk through energy audit: engineering knowledge and common sense will go a long way in identifying low hanging fruits [...]
An old adage goes that an engineer keeps working even standing in line to pay for beer. This certainly came true during my last vacation at a small resort by a warm sea. Several energy-related observations I made there illustrate what is commonly happening in industrial setting back home and provide actionable lessons. Following these [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
