With the costs of energy rising, businesses and homeowners are turning to energy management services to reduce their energy usage. There are a lot of concerns over statutory obligations and resilient energy supplies on climate change and emissions of energy. The energy management strategies depend on the type of company and the life cycle of the installation.
Coordination is very important. Energy managers may want to turn the lights off if possible but the engineering manager may want the lights to be on. The facilities manager wants a healthy environment for occupants to encourage productivity. This means that there could be a conflict of interests but all the sides should work together. Failing to do something and carrying on regardless isn’t an option when it comes to considering energy management. Here are some common energy management challenges you need to know.
Ownership
We need to understand and know the owner of energy management. Organizations should have a good plan to meet the problem. As the company policies develop, the statutory obligations on safety and health also develop. Energy management requires similar levels of responsibility and ownership from the board level to the floor of the shop. Visitors and staff also need to understand their roles in reducing any unnecessary use of energy and reduce energy bills.
The system
Energy management is a process-driven system to assess where what and how the energy is used carefully. Monitoring and analysis will identify opportunities and areas for improvement. An energy management system framework uses the universal model of planning, doing, checking and acting as often adapted to management improvements.
The sources of energy
Understanding the source of energy is very important. Is the source of energy large enough? Costs depend on the source of energy and the size of the supply. Renewable sources of energy can help with reducing the costs of importing energy to premises but bring their own issues of resilience, consistency and adequate cover during the essential maintenance periods. A good energy management strategy should be carefully linked to another business strategy to ensure it doesn’t become a problem.
The user behavior
Huge investments in power-saving equipment and associated control technology can also save energy. Within any environment, the modification of the behavior of users is recognized as the fastest win in terms of reducing the consumption of energy. It doesn’t matter if the technology in your state is new or old – if the working culture isn’t influenced in line with policies for energy management, energy will be wasted and the bills will be high.
Active measures
International and national standards drive modern building designs towards energy-saving controls and technology. Benchmarking the design tools will help shape new installations. Potential maintenance issues, installation operation, whole-life performance and user interfaces should be considered. If you get any of these things wrong then even expensive technology will not work.
Balances and checks
Without analysis and monitoring of the existing situation, energy management services will fail and it will be hard to justify the initial investment.