Energy Managers make all the difference

Recently, Natural Resources Canada released a report highlighting the success that embedded Energy Managers had on the Resource Sector (Mining and Gas).  These Energy Managers were able to make a significant impact on the businesses they were part of in a short period of time.

Below is a summary of the article and the successes that have been realized through the hiring of energy managers across British Columbia.

A study conducted a few years ago by BC Hydro – the Conservation Potential Review – found that the mining sector could achieve energy savings of up to 400 gigawatt hours annually. Steve Quon, Mining, Oil & Gas Sector Manager at BC Hydro’s Power Smart, says that as a result of the study, Power Smart partnered with the Mining Association of British Columbia (MABC) to look for key areas to target for energy savings. The subsequent hiring of energy managers at seven mine sites across the province was a major step in realizing those energy savings. “Energy managers are a good story for everyone,” says Quon, noting that by having an energy manager on staff, continuous improvement is possible, and sustainability and energy efficiency become part of normal business practices. This increases operational efficiency, which is essential to the mining sector because it is British Columbia’s second largest electrical customer. Quon explains that BC Hydro, in conjunction with the MABC, also conducted an all-fuels baseline audit, which was piloted at Walter Energy™-Western Coal’s Wolverine mine and Thompson Creek Metals Company Inc.’s Endako mines. The all-fuels baseline audit provides a detailed snapshot of energy use and waste at a mine site. It can be used yearly to compare trends in energy consumption and efficiency over time; and it can be used to compare mine sites. The audit is also a natural complement to the Mining Association of Canada’s Towards Sustainable Mining strategy. “All of these initiatives align very well, but in order to fully implement them, a dedicated person – an energy manager – is needed,” notes Quon. Several mining companies had the information needed to move ahead but lacked the champion to make projects happen. Consequently, Power Smart offered to provide significant funding for hiring industrial energy managers to remove any financial and human resource barriers. This allowed the following mines to hire energy managers: Highland Valley Copper mine, Thompson Creek Endako mine, Copper Mountain Mining Corporation mines, Agfa’s New Gold mine, Teck’s coal mine and Walter Energy-Western Coal’s Wolverine mine. Most of the energy managers were hired in 2011, and although it is difficult to attribute energy savings directly to their presence, Quon says that the link is surely there. “What is equally important is that energy managers can make the business case for energy efficiency projects and ensure that energy efficiency is built into every project,” concludes Quon. Visit BC Hydro Power Smart’s Web site for energy efficiency programs for the mining sector, including its offer for energy managers. Thanks for reading.

Exciting announcements at OCE Discovery last week

Energent is very proud to announce the latest investment the Ontario government has made in improving the Smart Grid infrastructure.  On Tuesday, May 15th, Sean Conway, Chairman of the Board of the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) and Brad Duguid, Minister of Economic Development and Innovation, announced support for an innovative partnership between Energent and Wilfrid Laurier University.

Gord Ellis, CTO of Energent Inc., and Wilfrid Laurier University are collaborating on a communications software system that can potentially be installed on all smart grid devices to allow them to communicate with each other to facilitate smarter, more effective, efficient energy use. The platform is now under development with a prototype, and further research and development will be conducted in collaboration with the team from Wilfrid Laurier.

This exciting infrastructure development, designed to design and create a communications middleware system, will be powerful enough to handle the increased amounts of data that are part of the Smart Grid.  “The Grid is going to be all about data management” says Sean Conway, Chair of the OCE Board of Directors, “and therefore the Grid must communicate effectively and reliably, and must be able to handle vast amounts of data.”  This collaboration will enable all three of these communication goals, providing a stable platform for which the Smart Grid to grow from.

These are two videos announcing the project below in this blog post.

 

Celebrating Earth Hour

Energent is excited to support the 2012 Earth Hour on March 31.  For one hour, between 8:30pm and 9:30pm, millions of Canadians will come together and turn off their lights.  We will be turning our lights off at the office and at home to support this important event, and encourage everyone to do the same.

We will be monitoring the collective effect of our client’s Earth Hour response.  We encourage you to check our website after Earth Hour to see the positive impact our clients have made.   Also, we want to know what your organizations or personal energy saving tips and tricks are.  Each one of our clients will receive a special report highlighting the success of their Earth Hour response.  This will give each of our clients an opportunity  to show their stakeholders the value of initiating Energy Conservation Measures (ECMs) that in many cases cost the organization no money.

We look forward to watching our clients make this significant contribution to Earth Hour, and sharing this response to the world.  Click on the link below to participate in our poll.

Thanks for reading!

Energent at Globe2012 – Shifting Focus from “If” to “Now”

Energent just returned from a very successful and enlightening week at the Globe2012 conference in Vancouver, BC.  Aside from attending very compelling presentations by global leaders in sustainability, meeting visionaries from within organizations dedicated to changing the way their business operates, we noticed a decided shift from talk to action.  No longer are the conversations blue sky and what-ifs; they are about concrete actions and achieved results.

In our environment, those that are interested in energy management of commercial, institutional, and industrial building are pushing their current systems to keep up to the demand of an engaged and enthusiastic energy manager.  The are asking questions like:

What if my energy monitoring system could build in best-case scenarios and I could build business cases directly from the reporting tool?

They are pushing their monitoring systems by saying:

I need my energy monitoring system to help me manage energy in every part of my business, and experts to help me use this tool.

Ultimately, we have found that an Energy Management system is very similar to a gym membership.  If you buy an Energy Management system and just look at it, you aren’t going to be very successful at managing energy.  If you buy a gym membership to lose weight and you just keep the card in your wallet, you aren’t going to be very successful at losing weight or getting healthier.

Energy Management is a participation sport.  We are going to focus on that in our next few posts because Energy Managers have been lied to for the past 5+ years.  We want to set the record straight…and based on the presentations at Globe2012, software providers are going to be pushed to provide more than data.  We need to start taking that data and turning into information, and from that information, use people combined with the software tools, to create knowledge.  Knowledge will enable a true revolution in energy management.

Stay tuned as we teach all energy managers about turning mountains of data into usable knowledge that will enable great decisions.

Thanks to the presenters and attendees at Globe2012 for focusing the conversation from “If” to “Now”.  Amazing.

Don’t forget that Energent is hosting its newest webinar or Greenhouse Gas reporting requirments for public builings Thursday, March 22 at 2pm EST  Click here to register.

Energent particpating at Globe 2012

Energent is excited to be part of the premiere global conference on sustainability and the environmental economy.  Globe 2012 brings together a worldwide audience to discuss and debate the pressing issues of the economics of environmental sustainability.  Energent is excited to be part of this world-class conference and tradeshow, and to participate as part of the Ontario Pavillion.

At the tradeshow, Energent will be showcasing two products.  The first product is Energent’s class-leading Energy Management Information System.  Energent’s EMIS platform provides visibility into the real-time energy consumption of operations in industrial, institutional, and commercial buildings.  The comprehensive reporting and alerting that is enabled because of the Energent platform drives companies to lower energy consumption and save money.

Energent will also be presenting it’s leading-edge Home Energy Smart Grid platform.  The Energy Hub Management System (EHMS) is being deployed across Ontario through partnerships with Hydro One, Ontario Power Authority, and the University of Waterloo.  Energent’s EHMS is a web-based, two-way communication and software optimization  engine, providing every home with the opportunity to optimize thier home energy consumption based on goals for the end user and the Utility.  Home owners see value through lower energy costs and improved visibility into their consumption, and Utilities will be able to optimize the distribution of electricity to thousands of homes, lowering peaks, and improving efficiency.

At the conference, Energenet will be presenting an update on the roll out across Ontario and will welcome other Utilities and jurisdictions that are interested in grid optimization to speak to them at Globe.

To arrange a meeting with Energent at the Globe 2012 conference on either the EMIS or the Smart Grid EHMS, please contact Craig Haney at chaney@energent.com, or by phone at 519-725-0906 x2007.  Energent is looking for productive meetings with utilities and municipalities interested in reducing peak demand on their grid through Home Energy Management plans.  Energent is also interested in meeting with commercial building operators, municipalities, and manufacturing organizations looking to lower their energy consumption through real-time reporting and ehanced energy analytics.

Look for Energent at Globe 2012 in booth 1117-13 at the Ontario Pavillion on the Globe Tradeshow Floor.

Thanks for reading

System Maintenance

Energent will be conducting some system maintenance during these times:

1. Saturday February 18, 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM, EST
2. Saturday February 25, 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM, EST

The Energent web site will be unavailable from time to time during the above periods.

Net-Zero Buildings

It’s cheaper to save a kilowatt than it is to generate a kilowatt

architects and building operators have long said that energy efficiency is the key to lower energy costs.  It’s this reason that Pike Research, a well-known research company sees the market for Building Energy Management Systems (BEMS) growing faster and earlier than Net-Zero Buildings.

Net-Zero Buildings are built to generate at least the same amount of energy as they consume.  For commercial builders, there are certain incentives and benefits to building Net-Zero building but they aren’t free.  The latest numbers from the United States suggest that a Net-Zero Building cost approximately 6% more than a standard building.  Considering the savings opportunities, the payback seems to be reasonable.  Since commercial vacancy rates in the United States are at 16% (reference here), building operators would prefer to reduce their energy consumption instead of building new energy efficient buildings.  As we stated in an earlier post, it is always “greener” to retrofit an existing building than to build a new building, so it makes sense that BEMS are a cost effective and strategic way for building operators to lower energy costs.

Look for BEMS to continue to make an impact in the commercial energy efficiency sector in 2012 and beyond.

Thanks for reading.

It’s tough to be in manufacturing these days

It’s pretty difficult for manufacturers in North America to compete.  This is nothing new to this industry, but it doesn’t make it any easier to manage.  Recently in Ontario we have seen some very high profile manufacturing plants close and move operations to some other jurisdiction.  In both these cases, these jobs stayed within North America, but the plants were closed for the same reason…to reduce costs.

Energent was created when our manufacturing clients wanted to understand their energy use, with the ultimate goal of reducing their energy costs.  Since 2007, we have been working with manufacturing clients to help them achieve these two primary goals:

1. Better understand where their energy is being spent
2. How to reduce the cost of energy and maintain production

We receive the most interest from manufacturers when times are tough and they are looking for every possible savings opportunity.  Energy is rarely thought of as a manageable expense, but that is changing every day.

Electricity and Natural Gas are already an important part of most manufacturer’s budget considerations.  Most VP’s of production in manufacturing facilities pay their energy bills without consideration of how to change them.  We often hear

We can’t change production schedules to accommodate energy costs.  How else can we manage this expense?

Energy management comes in all forms, including altering productions schedules when that is feasible.  When it’s not, information on energy’s contribution to each production line highlights where savings can be found.

In a case study on our website showcases how a simple analysis of furnaces in different production lines produced savings in the first year of $240,000!  No change in production, no costly retrofits.  It was found that one furnace was significantly less efficient than the other furnaces, and once the furnace manufacturer repaired the furnace,  their natural gas consumption significantly dropped, with no change in production.

As manufacturers continue to look for innovative and impactful cost reductions, energy can become a manageable expense and a strategic opportunity to increase profits.  We are committed to supporting the manufacturing sector and will do what we can to offer cost-effective solutions that support this important economic engine.

Thanks for reading

The “Cost” of new, sustainable buildings

“The greenest building is the one that is already built.” 

This statement goes against what many people think.  All overy major North American cities, demolition crews are dismantling old, inefficient buildings and creating new, more efficient, more sustainable buildings in their place.  Seems like a great idea.  If we look at this more closely, it makes us think a little differently.

Preservation Green Labs (link here) is a Seattle-based think tank that explores the value that older buildings bring to their communities, and pioneers policy solutions that make it easier to reuse and green older and more historic buildings.  It’s important to understand this context as the research they released on January 24, 2012 as it forwards their cause.  Saying that, there is a lot of good information that is both objective and scientifically factual.

Here are some of the highlights of the report

Reuse Matters: It can take between 10 – 80 years (typically 30) for a new energy efficient building to overcome, through efficient operations, the climate change impacts created by its construction.

Scale Matters: Collectively, building reuse and tretrofits substantially reduce climate change impacts.  Cities often have an opportunity to incorporate reuse and retrofit initiatives into budgets and planning, providing significant scale and carbon reductions.

Design Matters: The environmental benefits of reuse are maximized by minimizing the input of new construction materials.  Retrofits and reuse projects using recycled materials provides big opportunities for reducing environmental impact.

Conclusion: When comparing buildings of equivalent size and function, building reuse almost always offers environmental savings over demolition and new construction.

The entire report can be read here.

The opening sentence is a comment that can be debated over fair-trade coffee and organic beer on a patio any day.  The value that comes from a report like this is the debate and how debates like this can enhance everyone’s understanding of the best ways to deal with existing infrastructure.

Please leave your comments as I would love to hear them.

Thanks for reading.

Energy Management comes home

This week, the US Government announced the Green Button Initiative with the hopes that millions of home owners will be able to monitor and control their home utility bills through the web and smartphone apps.  The New York Times wrote a strong blog post on it today (you can see it here)This is definitely not another “big brother” initiative by the White House; this is a plan that will encourage and enable the private sector to build tools to support this government program.  Three of California’s largest utilties joined the Initiative to encourage adoption of a standard by which Utilities will home utility bill information can be viewed and downloaded directly from the Utility website.

It’s a very interesting strategy put forth from the White House.  Encourage the big utilties to share information in a consistent manner, then step out of the way and watch the private sector fill in the gaps.  More importantly, will home owners care enough to find this information on their Utility’s website, or will they just think it’s noise that needs to be drowned out?  Our hope is that people will care, but our belief is that they will only care if it makes financial sense to care.

Energent is deploying Home Energy Management Systems across the province with the goal to reduce electricity consumption and increase awareness.  The data isn’t in yet as to the impact on electricity reduction, but our research tells us that will coincide with the level of engagement.  So, what does this mean?  Energent believes that we have to engage the end consumer and make energy relevant to them.  To do this it must be easy to collect the data, interesting to read, and will save them enough money that it matters.

Creating a standardized platform to allow users to easily access and review this information is a great first step.  It is now up to the Utilities and the private sector to create compelling reasons and great products to drive this Home Energy Management business model.  Any business models that are based solely on government subsidies are at best mediocre, and at worst doomed.  Here’s hoping we can all do our part in Canada and the United States to build this market into a meaningful growth opportunity, not one of just speculation and government handouts.

Thanks for reading.