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The last 18 months has seen fluctuating wholesale energy prices bring increasing economic pressures on UK businesses. With no short term solution in sight, there is now a paradigm shift across industry from the historic ‘best price’ focus to now ensuring ‘best use’.
Growing political ambitions to address climate change are also causing industry to rethink energy consumption, with a raft of legislation coming into force in early 2006 aimed at encouraging energy efficiency.
The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) presents the major challenge for the industry, with its far-reaching implications. The main areas of the Directive include measuring energy performance and energy efficiency certification.
In addition, amendments to Part L of the UK Building Regulations, due to come into force at the same time, will require larger buildings to be pressure tested to make sure they are airtight and for a log to be kept of energy consumed. There is also other legislation due out concerning business processes, namely the EU Directive on Energy-End Use Efficiency and Energy Services.
The combination of these new laws will put increasing pressure on companies to reduce energy consumption. There is a three year period of grace from January 2006 while systems for issuing energy certificates and regular inspections are established, but all companies need to become more aware of the impact on them.
With these economic and regulatory factors coming to bear on commercial energy users, it is imperative that companies gain a greater understanding of their energy use to enable them to become truly energy efficient.
The best way to start this process is to audit energy consumption. This will establish where, when and how energy is currently being used. There are a variety of energy audits available to UK business, from energy suppliers and bodies, such as the Carbon Trust.
Although an audit can give a good insight into energy use, it is also worth considering existing metering capabilities. For organisations that have a number of business processes, or buildings that are multi-tenanted, having additional meters allows a more precise means of measuring processes such as air conditioning or lighting, or the energy use of individual tenants.
For heavier energy users, half hourly meters provide an even more accurate way of understanding energy consumption, helping build a picture of energy use throughout the working day.
Once energy use is sufficiently measured, this data needs to be collected. There are many accredited meter data collection operators that can easily and efficiently collect data from company sites, which in turn can be fed into billing systems.
But, data collection should not simply be seen as a way to get more accurate bills; it can also form the foundations for energy management.
For example, npower business offers its customers a Half Hourly Online service; a web-based, energy management system. This affords businesses highly accurate and timely monitoring of energy use meaning they can spot usage anomalies immediately. Plus, over time, consumption can be compared against historical trends to verify any faults and identify the most appropriate action to take.
This system was used when npower business recently worked with a major airport. The operators could not understand why energy consumption remained relatively high around the clock, despite the airport closing between midnight and 6am. Using Half Hourly Online, it was discovered that the air conditioning was left on continuously, even when the airport was closed. This initiative helped the airport save over £100k on their energy bills.
Energy and environmental considerations are becoming a board-level issue as Dr Jill Brown, Energy & Environmental Analyst for RWE npower explains: “Many businesses are increasingly concerned with demonstrating sound environmental performance by controlling the impacts of their activities, services and also products on the environment. Stricter regulations and legislation, plus a need to report environmental performance to appropriate stakeholders, has resulted in many organisations integrating environmental management systems into their corporate structure.
“Corporate Social Responsibility reports are becoming more widespread, and the uses of organisational tools, such as ISO 14001, provide a framework for managing environmental responsibilities.
“Both EU and UK Government policy indicates that energy efficiency and energy saving targets will be prime political objectives. It is not only the large organisations, particularly the big energy consumers that are affected by these various legislative instruments. Other business sectors are being targeted with stringent controls such as public sector bodies.
“Energy management and energy efficiency are long established practices, but, for many organisations, they have remained outside the core of business management practice, and not regulated by legislation. Initiatives, such as the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, are causing carbon management to emerge as a new cultural discipline.”
While many companies are looking to address climate change issues by committing to purchasing their energy from renewable sources, understanding where, how and when energy is consumed will undoubtedly help lead to more intelligent use of energy and a more environmentally, and economically, astute organisation.
