What is energy management?
Energy management is the process of monitoring and tracking energy to conserve its usage in buildings and manufacturing premises. Now energy management directly affects the smooth running of the manufacturing business in the world. Energy management aims to lessen and control energy consumption which helps to improve output production, employees’ productivity, reduce risk, saves environment and cost. This is a holistic approach to benefit the business and community. Therefore, as energy management become more innovative, the role of energy management in the manufacturing industry has changed over time and benefit to others as well.
Recognized energy savings
In today’s world, energy management is driven to ensure reduce the electrical usage within sustainable levels especially during peak demand production. The electric energy distributed is based on people’s demand and availability of supply. The electronic devices or smartphones gather data on the building of electricity needs and manufacturing requirement. Then the system will anticipate and forecast the usage demand and allocate energy throughout the building. The data collection, improved energy metering and good compatibility communication between connected devices are key components to guiding users to save electricity.
Energy management also helps building manager to control energy usage flexibly by scheduling the energy in order to utilize optimal electricity usage during peak and off-peak periods. The organization and the building managers will schedule and save on energy bills and efficiently saves energy in the long run. This is a justified business sense for the building operator and by undertaking such energy management, the users understand consumption pattern in the manufacturing industry. The manufacturer is able to identify location and time the energy most intensely used. For instance, food warehouse owners would justify to over-cooling the frozen food overnight rather than cooling it on peak times during the day because based on the data analysis information that they churned up in software, they will eventually save up more on energy consumption and utility bills by this approach. The manufacturer owners do not have to argue and worry about incurring the idle cost of wasteful energy anymore.
Automatic sensing technology
In future, the automatic sensing system can be programmed to adjust any desired electrical energy and monitor the energy consumption personally through the new smart technological system. These energy management consist of an automatic system that can help to monitor factories which provides feedbacks for better analytics throughout the buildings and how much employees consuming energy. Obviously, as a facility manager, the incumbent must manage the production and processes in factories and checked the energy usage always especially so in large manufacturing buildings. With these sensing technologies, smart tools could be used to help them to utilize the systems to manage the electricity and alerting the users with confidence and convenience. As a user, the building manager can simply pinpoint energy waste and emergencies in factories and manufacturing buildings with advanced data analytics and look at it through electronic devices such as smartphones and smart computer gadgets. Energy management could also utilize alarm installation that alert users whenever there are energy breakdowns and will highlight as well on critical information, maintenance issues, equipment failures and sensors that can detect energy levels which are out of range such as whether the temperatures are too low or too high.
Environmentally friendly
Energy management is also closely related to environmental issues. The energy management innovation is able to help reduce the amount of CO2 gas emissions, other greenhouse gases and sulphur dioxide emissions that were created and released in the air on a daily basis. Efficient energy management can produce a positive impact on the environment such as lessen the greenhouse effect gas emissions as well as procuring social benefits which promotes people healthier livings. Both renewable and non-renewable energy provides energy such as electric supplies, transportation and generate heating or cooling system etc. This energy demand stressed the environment especially on non-renewable energy sources such as oils, natural resources that will not likely to be replenished by this century.
Manufacturing the source of energy requires factories or large plants to process but the factories would emit harmful gases and cause air pollution which results in global warming and climate change. Therefore, energy management innovation is an alternative way to save the environment on a sustainable basis. This approach of energy management provides the flexibility to potentially control, monitor, measure, produce energy and response to consumer demands with a continual supply of energy throughout the building. Simple ways of energy management include installing green features to buildings like harvesting rainwater, generating less electrical waste, lessening the harmful gas emissions and lowering the operating cost. Although the construction infrastructure cost for energy management can be upfront and expensive it saves on the operating expense and energy cost which will eventually gain long term return on investment. Today, most government policymakers, private companies and international cooperation projects from all over the world move towards reducing the greenhouse gas emissions. For example, major oil company such as Royal Dutch Shell and other investors had signed the Paris Agreement, aim to reduce the global temperature rise well below 2 °C. According to Royal Dutch Shell, it stated to cut its carbon footprint to 20% per unit energy by 2035 and it will further cut by 50% per unit energy by the year 2050. Most companies are nowadays transforming renewable global energy market and transitioning into low-carbon manufacturing implementation.
Recognize value beyond energy cost saving
Almost most manufacturers are concerned with reducing utility cost but they are not aware of the consequences of not using energy management practices. Simply explained, energy does not disappear but its energy use in the machines can transform into either waste or value. Let us take an example of milk manufacturing and the industrial energy issues are as follows;
- A wrong recipe in milk in the mixer during production can lead to increased electricity consumption.
- On-going compressor during non-production hours signals unauthorized operations or air leaks.
- Freezer uses up more electricity consumption due to open door or loss of insulation.
Other energy saving options are as follows;
- Stable load increases the lifespan of machines or motors and avoid production stoppage.
- Prevent errors and mistakes in sorting and packaging the product with good lightings.
Energy management always creates value for the manufacturer even without an energy consumption reduction. For instance, power factor correction in energy management is able to reduce the electricity bill with no effect on the production process. Energy management system provides analytic data, better energy control and tracks the user actions that will make users to make the best decision with accurate data.
Atalian Global Services provides energy management services and dedicated to deliver effective energy management in a manufacturing setting. Atalian offers the best energy management service that is tailored to your specific needs and provides a suited package for you. Do contact us for a free consultation today for more information about our services.