Mitigation or Monitoring?

[Eric W. Schreiber]

I believe that as organizations evolve in the field of energy efficiencies they travel on either one of two path. Organizations either monitor their energy consumption and benchmark their fleet against each other. Hence, instigating innovation at a shipboard level. On the other hand, organizations can invest in new technologies across the fleet to mitigate the energy consumption.

 

What do you think is the most common approach to energy efficiency at maritime companies?

 

Eric

 

http://www.linkedin.com/in/eschreiber

[Shaun Wright]

Dear Eric

I read with interest your comments, in particular ‘ they travel on either one of two path’. There is a further path / option that one can travel down and that is ‘real’ energy efficiency.  The field of energy management is misunderstood and many individuals, and large organisations, have limited understanding what it actually means in practice. When a consultant is carrying out an energy management audit in a factory / on board a ship, he is carrying out an in-depth review on how the all plant/ services on site are managed, controlled and utilized. A simple understanding would be ‘what you do with your energy, how and when?’.

Although this may sound a strange thing to ask as we are all engineers and everyone knows how to operate their plant, unfortunately this is not the case. I can walk in to any factory (in the world), and ship,  tomorrow and identify 5-10% saving before lunch and a further 5-10%, if the client wants to invest in energy efficiency, before afternoon tea time.

I believe there are a number of reasons for this miss use in energy. One, is that there are no engineers left in the western world. We do not teach energy efficiency in schools or Colleges. Operators/organisations tend to rely on maintenance contractors for advice, which in most cases is inadequate and targeted towards the product /service that they are trying to sell you. Organisations are employing cheap labour to operate their ships. Owners/operators want to 'plug in' a product so they can say they have 'done' energy efficiency.

In short, if an organisation thinks it can just ‘ pay, plug in and play’ the latest energy efficient product on the market, unfortunately this will not work. Ask yourself this one question. If this product is left operating for 1 hour longer than it should, each day, then is this product energy efficient?.  Products that include energy efficiency ‘on the tin’ is a solution but may not be the answer. The ‘answer’ being what the organisation’s energy or CO2 targets / objectives are.

I trust this has helped you have a better understanding what energy efficiency is all about. I look forward to your reply as this is what these forums are all about. Regards Shaun (Barclay Richards Energy Solutions)

[Eric W. Schreiber]

Thank you Shaun for your post and reply.

I sincerely appreciate your comments and insight to the topic.

I agree with several of the points made in your writing but I need to challenge if it is in fact a 'third' path.

In the past I have implemented 'energy police' teams that audit the plant. I believe that an 'energy audit' is a rather rudimentary way of 'monitoring' but it is one of the two path.

Hence, some teams are like you say, lacking the interest to understand the energy balance/performance of the plant and an audit brings to light the inefficiencies.

 

Thank you again for your contribution.

 

Eric

[Shaun Wright]

Hi Eric

I think I need to add that there is a bit more to what an energy consultant actually does for a living. Checking that plant and equipment is switched off is one of the jobs he has to do however as you point out most ‘energy police’ could do this.

 When an energy consultant comes on site to do an audit he will be carrying out a in-depth review on how you manage, control and utilise your energy. In particular, review and improve operating strategies of existing systems, identify opportunities to install and integrate the latest energy efficient technologies, identify the potential for utilising energy from other sources such as heat recovery / free cooling (i.e. absorption), and looking at supplementing the existing energy requirements with alternatives such as  low carbon / renewable/CHP technologies. Taking into consideration whether it is a financial or carbon reduction that the client is looking for.

 Most important of all is that having seen these technical solutions previously been implemented and saving energy, at other organisations, we know that they work. This would be supported by in-depth calculations to justify technical and financial feasibility.

We can say that the main objective of the energy audit is to bring an overall improvement to all aspects of the existing manufacturing / operating process.  This is what I call ‘real’ energy efficiency and the point that I was trying to make above.

Regards

[Eric W. Schreiber]

Thank you again Shaun for your insight. I sincerely enjoyed reading more about it.

I may have a misunderstanding of the different auditing levels and I agree that an exhaustive intelligent review of the energy balance is different from 'checking switches'.

 

I would sincerely enjoy learning more about your efforts. Please keep me in mind if you are in South Florida.

It would be good to meet and talk in more detail about your experiences.

 

Sincerely,

 

Eric