Energy Management and Energy Industrial Engineering

"Energy management" is concerned with saving energy in businesses, public-sector/government organizations, and homes:

When it comes to energy saving, energy management is the process of monitoring, controlling, and conserving energy in a building or organization.

Energy management/saving  involves the following steps:

Metering  energy consumption and collecting the data.

Finding opportunities to save energy, and estimating how much energy each opportunity could save. Analysis of  meter data will indicate routine energy waste. An evaluation of  the energy savings that  could be realized  by replacing equipment (e.g. lighting) can be done. Upgrading building's insulation will reduce energy use.

Taking action to target the opportunities to save energy (i.e. tackling the routine waste and replacing or upgrading the inefficient equipment).  The use of relatively cheap control devices  such as timer switches can be used.


Energy management is applicable in number of organizations in different industries

Aircraft energy management and similarly energy management of rail engines and trucks, buses and cars are important.  I t's a skill that aircraft pilots learn in some shape or form.


Energy suppliers (or utility companies) do to ensure that their power stations and renewable energy sources generate enough energy to meet demand.


Home energy management: Energy management has been popular in larger buildings for a long time, Homeowners are also taking interest. Professional energy managers can contribute to the home as it is in larger buildings.


Energy management is the key to saving energy in your organization. Much of the importance of energy saving stems from the global need to save energy - this global need affects energy prices, emissions targets, and legislation, all of which lead to several compelling reasons why you should save energy at your organization specifically.

Globally we need to save energy in order to:

Reduce the damage that we're doing to our planet, Earth. As a human race we would probably find things rather difficult without the Earth, so it makes good sense to try to make it last.
Reduce our dependence on the fossil fuels that are becoming increasingly limited in supply.

Controlling and reducing energy consumption at your organization
Energy management is the means to controlling and reducing your organization's energy consumption... And controlling and reducing your organization's energy consumption is important because it enables you to:

Reduce costs – this is becoming increasingly important as energy costs rise.
Reduce carbon emissions and the environmental damage that they cause - as well as the cost-related implications of carbon taxes and the like, your organization may be keen to reduce its carbon footprint to promote a green, sustainable image. Not least because promoting such an image is often good for the bottom line.




How best to manage your energy consumption?


1. Metering your energy consumption and collecting the data
As a rule of thumb: the more data you can get, and the more detailed it is, the better.


The modern approach to energy-data collection is to fit interval-metering systems that automatically measure and record energy consumption at short, regular intervals such as every 15-minutes or half hour. There's more about this on our page about interval data.

Detailed interval energy consumption data makes it possible to see patterns of energy waste that it would be impossible to see otherwise. Energy you're using at different times of the day, or on different days of the week can be noted. And seeing these patterns makes it much easier to find the routine waste in the building.

2. Finding and quantifying opportunities to save energy


For example, an unbelievable number of buildings have advanced control systems that could, and should, be controlling HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) well, but, unbeknown to the facilities-management staff, are faulty or misconfigured, and consequently committing such sins as heating or cooling an empty building every night and every weekend.

And one of the simplest ways to save a significant amount of energy is to encourage staff to switch equipment off at the end of each working day.

Looking at detailed interval energy data is the ideal way to find routine energy waste. One can check whether staff and timers are switching things off without having to patrol the building day and night, and,  canfigure out who or what is causing the energy wastage. Using  detailed interval data, it's  easy to make reasonable estimates of how much energy is being wasted at different times.

An Illustration:
Use  interval data to calculate how much energy (in kWh) is being used each weekend.
Estimate the proportion of that energy that is being wasted (by equipment that should be switched off).

Also, most buildings have open to them a variety of equipment- or building-fabric-related energy-saving opportunities, most of which require a more significant capital investment. Good places to look for ideas include the Carbon Trust and Energy Star websites.

It's much more reliable to base savings estimates on real metered data.  And it's critically important to quantify the expected savings for any opportunity of investment.

Illustration 2 - The Chicago aquarium saved millions with an energy management dashboard
Kevin Stark, January 8, 2019

https://energynews.us/2019/01/08/midwest/this-chicago-aquarium-saved-millions-with-energy-management-dashboard/

3. Targeting the opportunities to save energy

For those energy-saving opportunities that require participation of the people in the building,  seriously big energy savings can be realized without investing anything other than time.

And  for those energy-saving opportunities that require new equipment, upgrade to equipment or insulation: take steps to realize  anticipated savings.


4. Tracking your progress at saving energy
Once  action to save energy is taken, it's important  to find out how effective  actions have been:

Energy savings that come from behavioural changes (e.g. getting people to switch off their computers before going home) need ongoing attention to ensure that they remain effective and achieve their maximum potential.
If you've invested money into new equipment, you'll have to check that  energy savings predicted has been  achieved.
If you've corrected faulty timers or control-equipment settings, you'll need to keep checking back to ensure that everything's still working as it should be. Simple things like a power cut can easily cause timers to revert back to factory settings - if you're not keeping an eye on your energy-consumption patterns you can easily miss such problems.


Managing your energy consumption effectively is an ongoing process...


At a minimum energy data has to be examined  once a week. Once a month may be a too long interval. It's a real shame when easy-to-fix faults such as misconfigured timers remain unnoticed for months on end, leaving a huge energy bill that could have easily been avoided.

Energy Industrial Engineering

Energy is an important input into engineering processes. Industrial engineering profession recognized the importance of energy input and the need to specially focus attention on energy to improve its productivity. Energy is included in the definition of industrial engineering of IISE along with machine, material, man, and information. 

Industrial engineering system efficiency engineering and human effort engineering. Energy industrial engineering is part of system efficiency engineering. Various energy engineers can be specially given inputs in energy industrial engineering We say mention, specially electrical engineers, we have to be given in industrial engineering  philosophy, methods and tools to focus on design and operation of electrical equipment to minimize energy consumption and increase its productivity.

19 November 2018
ENERGY AND PRODUCTIVITY - PART 1: WHAT IS PRODUCTIVITY AND WHY SHOULD WE CARE?
https://www.faradaygrid.com/media/2018/11/15/what-is-productivity-and-why-should-we-care

19 February 2019
ENERGY AND PRODUCTIVITY - PART 2: WHAT IMPACTS PRODUCTIVITY?
https://www.faradaygrid.com/media/2019/2/19/l3olto7pgp7a48zhnq5mutp5fb0i7g

7 March 2019
ENERGY AND PRODUCTIVITY - PART 3: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GDP AND ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION
https://www.faradaygrid.com/media/2019/3/7/energy-and-productivity-part-3-the-relationship-between-gdp-and-electricity-consumption

The What, Why, and How of Energy Management
https://www.energylens.com/articles/energy-management

Energy Efficiency Improvement and Cost Saving Opportunities for the Vehicle Assembly Industry: An ENERGY STAR Guide for Energy and Plant Managers
Article (PDF Available) · January 2008
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241957018_Energy_Efficiency_Improvement_and_Cost_Saving_Opportunities_for_the_Vehicle_Assembly_Industry_An_ENERGY_STAR_Guide_for_Energy_and_Plant_Managers


Energy Management
CRC Press, 01-Oct-1980 - Science - 248 pages
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=C0xZDwAAQBAJ


Plant Engineers and Managers Guide to Energy Conservation
Albert Thumann, Scott Dunning
The Fairmont Press, Inc., 2008 - Technology & Engineering - 460 pages
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=MlllTWaOyG8C

What Is an Energy Management Information System?.
https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy/publications/efficiency/industrial/emis/6035

Seven Principles For Effective Energy Management
https://fmlink.com/articles/seven-principles-for-effective-energy-management/

Energy management and audit - Bureau of Energy Efficiency - India
https://www.beeindia.gov.in/sites/default/files/1Ch3.pdf

Personal Energy Management

Personal Energy Management
https://workbrighter.co/energy-management-intro/

Daily Use of Energy Management Strategies and Occupational Well-being: The Moderating Role of Job Demands
Stacey L. Parker,1 Hannes Zacher,2,3,* Jessica de Bloom,4 Thomas M. Verton,5 and Corine R. Lentink5
Front Psychol. 2017; 8: 1477
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5584471/


Updated on 7 May 2020,  6 January 2020, 29 September 2019