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| Energy management | Financial Structure | Assistive Funding | Energy Efficiency | Effective Supply | Social considerations |
Energy Management >
This section describes energy management strategy which is considered integral in undertaking an energy effective estate project and includes tips to implement it in a large estate.
Profile of the organization
The energy management profile of the organisation should be determined based on the Energy Management Matrix (EMM - BRECSU 1993). The EMM assigns a “sophistication rating” (rating from 0 to 4) to each of 6 organisational issues:
| Level | Energy Policy | Organising | Motivation | Information Systems | Marketing | Investment |
| 4 Director and management | Energy policy, action plan and regular review have commitment of top management as part of an environmental strategy | Energy management fully integrated into management structure. Clear delegation of responsibility for energy consumption | Formal and informal channels of communication regularly exploited by energy manager and energy staff at all levels | Comprehensive system sets targets, monitors consumptions, identifies faults, quantifies savings and provides budget tracking | Marketing the value of energy efficiency and the performance of energy management both within the organisation and outside it | Positive discrimination in favour of ‘green' schemes with detailed investment appraisal of all new build and refurbishment opportunities |
| 3 Senior management | Formal energy policy, but no active commitment from top management | Energy manager accountable to energy committee representing all users, chaired by a member of the managing board | Energy committee used as main channel together with direct contact with major users | M&T reports for individual premises based on sub-metering, but savings not reported effectively to users | Programme on staff awareness and regular publicity campaigns | Same pay back criteria employed as for all other investments |
| 2 Junior management | Unadopted energy policy set by energy manager or senior departmental manager | Energy manager in post, reporting to ad-hoc committee, but line management and authority are unclear | Contact with major users through ad-hoc committee chaired by senior departmental manager | Monitoring and targeting reports based on supply meter data. Energy unit has ad-hoc involvement in budget setting | Some ad-hoc staff awareness training | Investment using short term pay back criteria only |
1 Basic |
An unwritten set of guidelines | Energy management the part-time responsibility of someone with only limited authority or influence | Informal contacts between engineer and a few users | Cost reporting data based on invoice data. Engineer compiles reports for internal use within technical department | Informal contacts used to promote energy efficiency | Only low cost measures taken |
0 No |
No explicit policy | No energy management or any formal delegation of responsibility for energy consumption | No contact with users | No information system. No accounting for energy consumption | No promotion of energy efficiency | No investment in increasing energy efficiency in premises |
The EMM will allow assessment of the perfromance of energy management as well as setting benchmarks for all the organisational issues in order to development and improve them concurrently.
There is not a formula to develop these issues, and mostly they will be improved according to the sensitivity of the overall organisation to energy management aspects, and the manager's own communication skills. However, some measures seems to be determinant for a snowball effect, such as an unequivocal energy policy, well divulged, and perhaps including a low cost campaign on energy saving or similar to raise awareness.
Phasing
Acquiring energy consumptions and related data is vital to plan any long or short term strategy. A preliminary audit should be undertaken collecting energy use data (invoices, etc.).
After basic data is acquired, some simple and low cost measures can be immediately taken, such as :
- Operating practices: review of installed systems, detecting not only fault equipment but also bad operation procedures ( hvac , lighting, etc)
- Purchasing strategies: review of fuel tariffs, timing, etc.
- Motivation and training practices: ensures everyone is aware and committed to energy savings, and to report detected faults.
After that, a new more in-depth energy audit will be required. This energy audit will probably require submetering to identify the major energy consumers and hence address more specific actions and/or investments. This will now include measured daily profiles that can be taken with a variety of techniques:
- Hourly Meters: These collect energy usage each hour and store the data in the meter. The meters replace previous meter and become the meter used for billing.
- Radio or Telephone Communications: The meters include a two-way radio or a telephone modem. The meter is read each night and the hourly data is collected. The meter can be read immediately upon request from.
- Video Camera: Simple and effective, a video camera can be used to shoot at 30mn intervals, registering the meter position. This avoids changing to new meters and installing them.
Typically for a large estate the meters can be water meters, gas meters, electrical meters or enthalpy meters.
For this second energy audit, outside assistance may be required for a more detailed study of energy flows or even renting of temporary meters. This audit should be carried out over a year to cover the whole cycle of seasons.
Since submetering is not always possible, to estimate and dissect loads, modelling of the buildings may be required.
Monitoring and Targeting
All this work should be seen as an open ended. As soon as measures are taken, results must be continuously monitored to give feedback of the measures success, detect faults and provide information for taking new measures and upgrades.
Comparison with other similar buildings or national indeces can provide the required “competition” for a continuous enhancement of the estate energy use. Benchmarking is an assessment of the estate energy performance by normalising the data through a set of procedures to calculate its NPI index (or other) and compare it with the performance yardsticks for the estate/building type.
Essential Preliminary Information >
From the outset of an estate project aiming for energy effectiveness, the following preliminary information is considered essential.
Site data
Concerning site data, we include general information about specific local resources which may provide some sort of efficient energy use and provide a good strategy for refurbishing e.g. the availability of water streams or lakes (including subterranean). The regional climate must be taken into account as well as the local climate, concerning the site itself. Present and future wind and solar exposition must be considered. General data will also include some organizational and legal issues, such as ownership of buildings, streets, infrastructures etc.
It is suggested to browse through some of the case studies presented on the “Inspiration Section” to search for ideas on endogenous energy supply/optimisation.
Individual description of buildings
For each building, more specific information will be required. Beside the information concerning the identification of the building (name, code, address, post code, etc.), information about construction details, year, availability of plans and other drawings, brief description of existing systems, etc. The type/uses of the building should also be presented to estimate if need be, factors associated with the type of building such as occupancy, domestic hot water usage, catering, and even typical electrical loads (this procedure should only be undertaken if daily metering or other measuring are impossible).
Loads
As explained in the energy management section, the study of loads should be as detailed as possible. Ideally this data should be obtained through half-hourly metering and data logging. The required output will consist at least of typical daily loads for summer, winter and a transitional season. For each season, it may be important to separate typical weekdays, weekends and even holiday periods.
However, and since metering is frequently not possible, daily loads may have to be estimated by sizing typical profiles according to the building types and uses. It is possible to combine different types of consumption profiles for a multi-purpose building by finding a blended profile proportional to zone type areas (or other) for the different usages. It will be necessary to scale the profile to its right size, by matching with monthly energy consumption.
If we dissect a thermal or electrical consumption profile, we will notice that it comprises the sum of several loads, e.g. the electrical profile may comprise the lighting loads, the cooling loads, small power loads, some heating and catering, ventilation and pumping, etc. while the thermal (or gas) may comprise cooling (absorption), space heating, domestic hot water and catering. If the profiles need to be dissected to evaluate measures related with one of the “subloads” (e.g. a lighting enhancement), ideally, information should be taken with submetering. Again, estimations can be made ranging from applying a percentage of energy use for the type of building (given as a pie chart in CIBSE AM5, among others), or estimate the load by hand calculations (catering, DHW) or modelling (cooling, heating, lighting).
Special Considerations
Under this heading we will briefly appoint some factors that can cause a “perfect” project to fail, either by unexpected technical constraints or just by unexpected costs.
Site specifics: Problems such as contaminated land, availability of space for storage compound (during major construction works), ownership of the estate buildings and land between them, type of licensing required (if a major refurbishment is to be taken into account, it may be economically impossible to reach the existing benchmarks), etc.
If a decision is taken to centralise power production, some technical and legal parameters must be studied, such as the viability of a district heating and cooling network, or a private wire network (e.g. if there is a local transformer for the whole estate).
Building specifics: The building itself may have construction/architectural constraints. The cost and viability (technical and legal) of refitting or building a new centralised distribution of cooling or heating. Aesthetical considerations as well as safety and security issues should also be taken into account.
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