Technology today is evolving at an incredibly fast pace. The cutting-edge ideas of yesterday are being implemented today, and what was a cutting-edge technological gadget a week ago has now been surpassed. At this rate, installations of technology equipment with a 20-year lifecycle are an investment in the past. At some point in time, the technology systems used in the heating, power and industrial sectors will simply be obsolete and non-trendy.
How to achieve energy efficient operations?
Many companies now have an ISO 50001 system in place, which provides a cycle of monitoring and evaluation of the measures taken, their implementation and subsequent assessment of the benefits, defining precisely the individual steps of the process. Such a process is one way of actively influencing the energy efficiency of plants and technological units. If we take a close look at what makes such a process truly addressable, we find that it is first and foremost the identification of the problem, its specification and the determination of the possible potential that the right set-up of the plant could bring to the company. This brings us to the key requirement – obtaining information about the problem, the state of the operation, its behaviour at certain times of the day. This is a wide range of information that defines the area of correlation with other units. Sometimes we can get so much data that we risk paralysis from analysis, but it is better to have more data than less. In general, we distinguish between two types of data – static and dynamic. Static data is collected for billing purposes (monthly or annual) and does not allow for much flexibility in navigating the process under study. That is why we prefer dynamic data, which, when well targeted, reveal often trivial errors in operational settings and lead us directly to the solution of the identified problem. To obtain this information, however, it is necessary to have “eyes and ears” on the object to “see and hear”. This brings us to the burgeoning field of IoT – the Internet of Things – and its wide applicability to energy flow management. IoT has opened up new possibilities that can be exploited within energy management.
What is energy management?
Energy management is the analysis of the actual state of an operation and the subsequent effort to move towards an ideal state or setup of the operation with optimal energy consumption.
With today’s pressure on the prices of goods, the total cost of producing a product is crucial for manufacturers. However, this is made up of different parts and one of them is energy consumption. With close and detailed monitoring, it is possible to find so-called “black holes” in the technology set-up and the resulting consumption. Monitoring and subsequent analysis will help to determine which part of the operation deserves more attention and, conversely, where any change would already be unnecessary and would not lead to the desired result. The combination of static and dynamic data is a prerequisite for the processing of such an analysis. On the basis of the information from the individual measured points and parts of the plant, it is possible to prepare the basis for the overall analysis. The energy manager draws on the results of this analysis and then proposes a series of measures that should lead to an improvement of the situation. The measurements on site also guarantee and enable the success of the measures introduced to be monitored, as well as the possibility of using older stored data. The way in which the data is processed and evaluated is, of course, also important in this process. It is now possible to overlook certain facts in the mass of constantly increasing data. For repetitive processes, it is possible to use software solutions with different levels of processing (up to machine learning). The advantage is a significant acceleration of the evaluation process steps.
Benefits of outsourcing
If a company, which primarily produces only, has for years been devoted only to building production capacity or starting up production, and its main motto has been – to produce, now starts to deal with energy efficiency, it will encounter the following problems:
1. Who is going to do it and when?
2. What data do we actually need to track?
3. Is the status quo sufficient for us, or is there more that can be done?
4. What resources are available on the market? If the answers to these questions are embarrassing, it is a good idea, and very useful for the company, to get in touch with a company that has experience and know-how in this area. It is important to choose a partner that has SW and HW solutions and can design and implement a tailor-made energy management service model for a specific customer, in close cooperation with energy experts and production specialists. Another argument in favour of outsourcing is the fact that the customer can fully devote itself to its core business and concentrate all its capacities on production. In a truly open partnership, the Open Book system is applied, where the proposed measures are project-processed after joint discussion and subsequent approval by the client and the basis for the technology selection is prepared. The client is an active part of the whole process and agrees on the individual steps. After delivery, installation and commissioning of the technology, the energy manager monitors the entire operation, evaluates the consumption, optimises the settings, all with regard to the goal that he and the customer set together at the beginning.
Where is energy management heading in the 21st century?
The dynamics of the processes also requires the dynamics of the feedback. A comprehensive service from an external partner with experienced subject matter experts can therefore ensure that a real specialist in a given area is dedicated to a specific problem when needed. It would be inefficient for a manufacturing company to employ such specialists, not only from a cost perspective, but also due to the minimum experience from other completed projects that they would not be able to gain on one site. Today, in energy management, the overall approach to problem solving is changing. There is a move away from reactive solutions in favour of a proactive approach. In energy management, we do not wait for a fault to manifest itself as a problem, but we try to take preventive action and, thanks to technology, measurements and detected deviations that signal a fault, we are able to act quickly enough to prevent the problem from occurring in the first place. Today, this very area is advancing incredibly fast and groups of experts are forming to bring new innovative solutions and set trends in measurement and evaluation. The energy management segment certainly has significant growth potential for the future.
Impact on the environment
The environmental aspect of increasing efficiency in energy consumption is not to be overlooked. There is now a positive trend for companies to set a long-term strategy to reduce their consumption of primary resources. And energy management can help companies significantly in this endeavour. Efficient and economical operations reduce energy consumption and therefore help to protect the environment. In addition, companies also support local community associations that work to improve the environment in the area where they live. Last but not least, the people employed by these companies are nowadays not indifferent to the issue of a healthy environment and often voluntarily join corporate eco-activities themselves. Ing. Daniel Čurka, PhD., Director of Energy Services ENGIE Services
