Energy Management    

Basics and the Climate Change Levy                

Fundamentals & Planning    Where to start        Metering, Monitoring & Targeting    

The UK Climate Change Levy (CCL)

This UK levy, enacted to tie-in with the general agreements at Kyoto, taxes non-renewable fuel usage. Originally tax-neutral, the CCL raises industrial energy users’ costs and so some form of control is required by those industries in order to minimise the impact on their books.

Industries can join Climate Change Agreements where, in return for a substantial saving in the tax, companies agree a planned reduction in their energy use. Companies may take an individual approach or join an industry association where the members overall agree to energy reductions. In this case, an individual company can still benefit from a CCL discount even if they do not save energy, so long as the association performs. However, this is not a way of getting out of obligations and persistent offenders will find themselves facing the full cost and removal from the association. DEFRA states that in the first reporting period "Of 12,000 individual sites covered by CCAs, 10,500 (88 per cent) met targets and have had their Climate Change Levy discounts renewed." Or 12% failed for one reason or another.

DEFRA also state that "CCAs delivered a total reduction in CO2 emissions of 13.5million tonnes against an estimated 2000 baseline" so they appear to be working.

Thus, some form of energy management is recommended to all users. Whilst the CCL is an industrial levy, at home we can all save costs by simple measures, too.

DEFRA CCL Site

Fundamentals of Industrial Energy Management

"To be sure, if I were going there, I wouldn't be starting from here!"  We've all heard this one and it really is true for most large energy users. Many plants have little in the way on metering and do not understand how or where the energy is used in the plant. The main focus is often fiscal - "how cheaply can we buy it?" - rather than how energy consumption can be reduced.

It is clear that if you are to reduce your consumption and still make whatever it is you make, you must map out your energy usage. Having mapped it, you can identify where you must focus the efforts to the best effect.

So - first rule- measure! What isn't measured isn't controlled.

        

A plan of action is essential and the whole job should be treated as a project, with properly defined activities, management and costing.

What then?

Now you are monitoring your plant more effectively. Whilst you were arranging this, sorting out your monitoring budget and waiting for installation, you would have carried out a plant survey. This would have identified at least the main sources of waste. Don't wait to look at these areas until the software arrives - start working out what can be done.

How is your energy being used? Do you know what your energy overhead is?

 

 

 

 

Some areas might be obvious:

• Motors and fans are huge consumers of electricity: the more modern efficient ones will not only pay for themselves remarkably quickly, but the government (bless their cotton socks!) will give you tax allowances in the form of the Enhanced Capital Allowance Scheme (ECA)

• Heating - steam escaping to the atmosphere is wasted energy! In all probability waste steam can be recycled to heat something else or be reheated. This has two effects - saving heating energy and using less water which in turn means less water treatment involved with it's own related costs.

• Similarly, hot water - recycle and re-use wherever possible.

• Air compressors - must they operate how they do?

• Any machinery or consumer - is there a better way?

• Processes - can you use process optimisation tools?

These are just a few of the obvious contenders for the new "green" plant.

Meters

Meters are the best way to start recording individual plant area or item electricity use. They are relatively inexpensive - though installation must be allowed - and reliable. Modern meters can communicate with other systems digitally, meaning that readings can be seen where required and analysed as desired. With appropriate software, manufacturing plans and predicted energy use can be accurately predicted.

Where multiple plants are owned, the operator can readily look at the individual consumptions and compare with, say, output. This can be benchmarked and, of course, used in CCL discount plans too.

Where meters are either impractical or not cost effective, certain types of software can be used to determine the relationships of plant activity and energy consumption.

If you are involved in Monitoring & Targeting, measurement is not a luxury - it's a basic necessity.