Save energy with monitoring and targeting

You can’t control what you can’t measure, so effective monitoring and targeting is typically an important step in any campaign to save energy.

Many steam users are on the lookout for new ways to save energy as fuel bills and climate change legislation continue to bite. But saving energy isn’t rocket science. Just think about how people and processes manage their energy consumption. It can be an extremely effective strategy. Significant savings can be achieved when users are able to see exactly where energy is being used.

Many organizations find that effective monitoring and targeting (M&T) schemes can shave up to 5% off their energy bills. That’s because simply making an organization’s individual departments or cost centers accountable for their energy consumption puts the impetus for saving onto the users.

Making sense of M&T

Once they’re up and running, M&T schemes typically take factors such as the changing weather or production levels into account to check trends and spot avoidable waste. M&T also helps to highlight promising areas for further investigation, raise staff awareness and encourage the spread of best practices.

Accurate measurements; fast payback

The first step in making users pay for the energy they use is to measure their consumption. The more accurate their metering, the better the control over consumption, and that applies to steam as much as it does to other utilities, such as gas and electricity. The improved energy efficiency that often results from proper metering means that new metering installations typically pay for themselves within two years.

For the most accurate and efficient steam metering installation, the right meter needs to be selected. Steam is a relatively slow-flowing, high-temperature fluid with variable density, often feeding variable demand and with entrained moisture that can damage unsuitable meter types.

Accuracy is obviously important, but turndown—which is the ratio of the maximum and minimum flow rate that the meter can measure—is often an even bigger consideration. Choosing a meter with the largest possible turndown minimizes the chance of ending up with a meter that can’t measure accurately across the required flow range.

http://www.en-mat.com/save-energy-with-monitoring-and-targeting

ENMAT working on new Wireless Integrated Energy Data Logger

The ENMAT team are working on a new Data Logger that will support built in wireless technology.

The new logger will support standard Ethernet, just like the existing ENMAT Data Logger range, however this new unit will also support built in 3G/GRPS connectivity as standard, eliminating the need for additional bolt-on adapters to support 3G functionality.

The new wireless data logger unit will support a ZigBee Pro adoption of this protocol using Modbus.

ZigBee is a specification for a suite of high level communication protocols used to create personal area networks built from small, low-power digital radios. ZigBee is based on an IEEE 802.15 standard. Though low-powered, ZigBee devices often transmit data over longer distances by passing data through intermediate devices to reach more distant ones, creating a mesh network; i.e., a network with no centralized control or high-power transmitter/receiver able to reach all of the networked devices. The decentralized nature of such wireless ad hoc networks make them suitable for applications where a central node can’t be relied upon.

http://www.en-mat.com/enmat-working-on-new-wireless-integrated-energy-data-logger

Mandatory carbon reporting: the implications for business

Some five years ago, Ed Miliband, then climate change secretary, set a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 on 1990 baselines. Since then, measures such as the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) have encouraged British businesses to contribute to the cause.

The introduction of mandatory carbon reporting for quoted companies, announced in June 2012, is the latest initiative. Although some ambiguities are yet to be sorted out, we now know one thing for sure: from October, companies will have to report their global carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in their financial reports.

Other questions have been answered too. Additional legislation in the Companies Act makes it the legal responsibility of the board of directors to “state the annual quantity of emissions in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent from activities for which that company is responsible”, with severe penalties (up to six months in prison) for any director who makes a misleading or false statement. “Carbon dioxide equivalent” (CO2e) is defined as emissions data from the six main Kyoto gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride, and hydrofluorocarbons). Defra has also released a methodology for converting, for example, litres of fuel used, number of miles driven or tonnes of waste into kilograms of CO2e.

But what impact will this have? The challenges of data collection, particularly for companies that operate across multiple premises scattered throughout different regions, Can be huge. This is where ENMATCan help.

Because ENMAT is a cloud based software platform it allows us to aggregate energy consumption from multiple sites, even if they are not in the same country.

ENMAT is a single application shared by many companies, allowing us to apply system updates globally simultaneously.

So, to calculate carbon emissions, for example ENMAT uses the DECC Carbon Emissions Factors to provide a more accurate reading of a site’s carbon emissions.

Key to Reducing Energy Costs? Real-Time Energy Monitoring Information

Energy makes up as much as 60 percent of the operating costs of batch and continuous-process plants. Many industrial companies interested in lowering energy consumption have already tackled much of the low-hanging fruit in their facilities, such as putting in more energy-efficient lighting, fixing compressed air leaks, tuning boilers or adding variable speed drives and energy-efficient motors. A more significant opportunity for savings, however, lies in better managing the energy consumed by production processes.

Taking that next step has long been a challenge because of process complexity and the lack of actionable information, but ENMAT is making the job easier. By providing a window into production processes and energy consumption patterns the ENMAT system gives plant personnel new tools to manage energy use in the same way they manage other resources.

Batch and continuous process operations can also use ENMAT to reduce utility charges by avoiding peak demand penalties, using the most cost-effective sources of energy, and generating reliable consumption forecast models.

Managing the demand side According to the U.S. Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey (MECS), the process itself uses 84 process of all energy consumed by a process facility, on average. The proportion is even greater in certain industries, such as mining, metals and mineral processing, and water treatment.

What’s more, true process energy optimization often goes hand-in-hand with reduced maintenance costs, less downtime and increased throughput. After all, machines that run less frequently and at lower temperatures tend to break down less often, which essentially yields higher ROI.

Reducing energy costs from production processes requires managing the five most important factors that determine both utility charges and total energy consumption,

These factors are:

1. Energy Event Management. Detection and analysis of process changes that cause consumption to exceed forecast
2. Peak Demand Management. Minimizing peak demand, which triggers higher utility rates or penalties.
3. Scheduled Demand Management. Minimizing costs by shifting demand to lower cost time periods.
4. Idle State Management. Minimizing energy draw during idle process conditions.
5. Demand/Response Management. Offering energy capacity back to the grid per request in exchange for incentives.