Measure and Manage your Energy Use

I read this insightful article by Hywel Davies, technical director of the Chartered Institution of Building Services, where he reviews some options for saving on electricity bills.

The pressure on government offices to reduce their energy consumption, bills and carbon emissions is growing.
1) Measure and Manage

The key to reducing energy use is to measure it and manage it. You cannot manage what you don’t measure, so the first task is to find out how much energy you use from meter readings. Larger government buildings may have half hourly metered data, but every building has meters. It may require perseverance to track down the data from past bills or better still, regular readings. If you don’t have automated reading and the bills are estimated, then start a program of weekly readings, or if possible, every Monday and Friday, so you know what’s used at the weekend.

Once you know how much energy is being used, you can check for obvious clues to waste. If weekend use is 25% of the electricity used during the week, it suggests either a lot of out of hours work or a lot of out of hours waste. Things are being left on over the weekends, and probably overnight.

2) Turn it off

So it’s time to tackle the first task of energy reduction: reduce demand by switching off unnecessary equipment, systems and processes. In some cases that alone could achieve a 10% saving. It’s amazing how many cleaning contractors believe that the best way to clean is to walk through the building turning all the lights on at the start, and then repeat the process, turning lights off, at the end. Over a two to four hour shift that can be a lot of lights in winter.

How many monitors, copiers and other machines are left running overnight? And how much of the building’s plant comes on too early, goes off too late, and runs at weekends. All these can be detected by a bit of observation and analysis of meter readings. Once the low hanging fruit is collected, then what?

3) Voltage Optimisation

One way to reduce electricity bills is to install voltage optimisation. These maintain a constant voltage in the building, avoiding the regular variations in grid supply voltage and maintaining the operational voltage at a constant and efficient value. The equipment is a transformer-like unit installed in-line or in parallel with the buildings electricity supply, normally in or near the intake room. There are several options which include:

- Parallel vs in-line systems: parallel installations (as opposed to in-line) are cheaper and do not require shutdown to install but are much less effective and can normally be discounted.
- Simple step down vs full optimisation: simple step down equipment (a tapped transformer) is cheaper but is not effective if the mains voltage varies over time as it often does. So generally, full voltage optimisation which maintains a constant supply voltage to the building is justified.

Further features concern improved security of supply such as overload protection and by pass facility and energy metering and monitoring additions.”

Whilst I fundamentally agree with the points above, I believe the view on energy data management is a work around solution; a better solution is a real time energy monitoring system with accurate data capture and analysis of more than simply kWh. This will allow for a more powerful understanding of energy consumption and energy efficiency opportunities load by load, site by site and enterprise wide. The technical architecture and solution design is important too, balancing legacy metering systems with newer metering systems such as power quality meters, data loggers and dashboards that allow for measurement of what's important are all factors that ensure a system delivers real and enduring value. I also think server based technology are best avoided for a range of reasons that I won't go into now.

Chris Hay CEO
18.05.12

How do Energy Management Systems and Voltage Optimisation Technology work together.

I am often asked by commercial clients "Do I need both an Energy Management System and Voltage Optimisation Technology?" The simple answer is YES.

Voltage optimisation is the systematic optimisation of supply voltage to reduce overall energy consumption. In the UK, Europe and more recently in Australia, voltage optimisation units has achieved average energy savings of between 6%-10% over the last five years. Major clients including Coles, Tesco and Asda have adopted voltage optimisation as a front-line energy saving measure.

An appropriate energy management system can enhance a voltage optimisation installation in 2 key ways:
- Identification and prioritization of highest potential sites.
- Post installation monitoring of energy savings from voltage optimisation

The Mojarra Energy Management Solution

In order to assist clients monitor, control and maximize their investment in voltage optimisation, Mojarra through its utilisation of its world leading energy management system provides its customers with the necessary monitoring and management tools.

By using its powerful reporting features, engineers at customer sites can now easily determine for which sites voltage optimisation is lucrative and energy-efficient.

Chris Hay, Managing Director
Direct: +61 (0)2 8437 8801

Fact vs Fiction – exposing some well rehearsed voltage optimisation sales tactics

I am surprised by the level of misrepresentation that is occurring in the sales and marketing of voltage optimisation technologies in Australia. On further investigation it is clear that these tactics have been commonplace in the UK for some time and have simply been exported to Australia.

Whilst we are seeing some very compelling results from the appropriate use of voltage optimisation technology, we are also increasingly conscious of some avoidable mistakes. I've included some summary observations below:

- I regularly hear the following claim; “the energy and cost savings differential between a fixed tap voltage optimisation unit and auto bi-directional voltage optimisation unit is only 2%.” I want to explain this claim because what it actually means is; if the savings from an auto unit is modelled/estimated at 10% a fixed tap unit will be 8%. Whilst the drop is 2% in real terms (10% to 8%) the actual savings from an auto unit are 20% greater than a fixed tap unit (10%-8%)/10%.

The plot thickens further and unfortunately the claims described above are worse than simply a misleading sales pitch. This claim is being used as a deliberate strategy to position more advanced voltage optimisation technologies as a more expensive and unnecessary investment which is clearly wrong on both counts. As we all know, the value proposition of voltage optimisation is the energy and cost savings delivered as a result of capital expenditure (depending on financing models) as measured by return on investment. Therefore supply chain efficiencies and the resulting cost advantages of this reflected in the price of the technology and the efficacy of the technology and other site specific factors are the primary drivers of return on investment. Thus the focus needs to be get better at what you do by: - 1) Driving down production and supply chain costs to deliver cost and price advantages in the supply of the product, 2) Invest in product innovation to deliver superior technology, and 3) Be thorough and conservative in your site specific analyses. The combined result of these is accurate and superior investment returns for customers rather than simply investing in deliberately misleading sales and marketing fictions.

- Ask to see the competitive analyses from the energy services companies claiming to be product agnostic and selecting and recommending best of breed voltage optimisation products for their clients. Again these claims are bandied around liberally and are compelling in a sales pitch but the substance of these analyses and claims need to be sighted and scrutinised. Without naming names I have seen what I consider to be best practise technology and vendor analysis in the IT sector but I am yet to see the same level of rigour applied in the energy services market particularly related to voltage optimisation technology. I think we would all benefit from this particularly our customers.

- Voltage optimisation is not just about voltage reduction it is about voltage stabilisation and in some instances particularly in under voltage environments being able to increase voltage and power to avoid damaging brown outs. Ensure you are considering all factors as they relate to a customers individual circumstances when selecting or recommending different types of voltage optimisation technology.

- Ask all vendors and consultants to explain and verify the methodologies for calculating energy savings from voltage optimisation. Be mindful of those that simply correlate the percentage of voltage reduction to the percentage of energy savings

As much as some may wish to refute this claim, I think the old advertising jingle of "oils ain't oils" also rings true in the voltage optimisation market.

Are you wrestling with the increasingly high cost of energy and poor quality data and wanting to do something about it? Mojarra can help. We can improve efficiency and reduce cost through providing improved data visibility.

Studies in the US show that more than 50%* of energy usage is wasted and our experience confirms this.

Mojarra can eliminate this waste by improving your access to data and assisting you prioritise energy efficiency initiatives. An energy management system based on the principles of ISO 50001 and a data collection system built on world leading technology provided by Elster EnergyICT™ will unlock energy saving initiatives.

Mojarra's customers typically save between 20-60% of their baseline energy use by implementing our customised energy management solution.”

*Source (http://phys.org/news/2011-04-energy_1.html) Image credit: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the US Department of Energy.

Today I found what I think is a concise and accurate summary by the Clean Energy Council (CEC) of some concerning announcements from the NSW State Government. I have shared it with you below. In my opinion, it is really pleasing to see the CEC taking a strong and active role in advocating and supporting the renewable energy industry and the 30,000 jobs and $20BN in investment that accompanies this. Now, more than ever, the renewable energy industry needs an effective voice to advocate on its behalf. It is also refreshing to hear another and important perspective in a debate that is too often dominated by grandstanding and powerful incumbency.

Chris Hay, April 12 2012.

NSW Government undermines election promise on renewable energy

Released by Clean Energy Council. April 12 2012.

Calls by the NSW Government to abondon Australia's 20 per cent Renewable Energy Target (RET) undermine a key state election commitment as well as putting billions of dollars of renewable energy investment at risk, the Clean Energy Council said today.

Clean Energy Council acting Chief Executive Kane Thornton said the timing of NSW Energy Minister Chris Hartcher's comments this morning was strange, given IPART's price determination today showed renewable energy such as wind and solar would contribute nothing to the projected NSW power hikes for the coming year.

"Page 3 of today's IPART report clearly states that 'green schemes' such as wind and solar are not responsible for any increase in electricity prices for the next financial year, Mr Thornton said.

"This is a case of short term politics trumping important long-term change that will benefit everyone, and it's a knee jerk reaction that is bad for investment and bad for jobs. You can't just turn major policies on and off like a light switch," he said.

Mr Thornton said removing the RET would seriously impact the viability of billions of dollars of projects that have already been built, and undermine the massive future opportunity for jobs and investment from clean energy in NSW into the future.

"It's a worrying sign that the NSW Government would seek the removal of one of Australia's most significant energy policies without considering the impact this would have on investors who have put billions of dollars into clean energy projects in NSW. The RET is scheduled to run until 2030 and these projects would face collapse if it was removed," he said.

"Mr Hartcher says he remains committed to growing renewable energy at least cost to consumers. The policy that does this is the Renewable Energy Target, which was introduced by the Howard Government in 2001 and expanded with the support of both major parties in 2009.

"It is hard to see how the NSW Government could meet its election commitment on delivering 20 per cent of the state's electricity from renewable energy without this policy.

"This is a policy that will deliver more than 30,000 jobs and $20 billion in investment. Companies have already invested more than $700 million in NSW wind farms alone under the Renewable Energy Target."