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How to find energy waste, to conserve energy!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-03-01T21:45:00.000-08:00

How to Use Energy Profiles to Find Energy Waste

The patterns (or profiles) of energy usage contained within interval energy data are exceptionally valuable for discovering where a building is wasting energy. The fine-grained detail of interval data (such as half-hourly data) is key - daily, weekly or monthly data doesn't carry anywhere near as much information about how energy is being used.
Energy profile charts and how to create them
How to look at energy profiles - a general philosophy
Understand the building to understand the energy profiles
Examples of energy waste shown in energy profiles
Energy profile charts and how to create them
Patterns of energy usage are often referred to as energy profiles. An example of a month's worth of energy profiles is shown below:
A month's worth of energy profiles (full-size view), created using Energy Lens software
How to create energy profiles from int

erval data
The charting features of Microsoft Excel will allow you to create your own energy profiles from interval data. However, you may wish to make the process faster and easier with software such as Energy Lens.

How to look at energy profiles - a general philosophy
Looking at energy profiles to find energy waste requires you to have some knowledge of the way that the building is operated. The key is to try to link the patterns of energy usage with the operations of the building.
Energy profiles show how much energy is being used at particular times-of-the-day and days-of-the-week - you want to be able to have a pretty good idea of what equipment is using that energy, and why it needs to be using it at the times in question.
If the profiles show energy being used on times or days when you're not aware of a good reason for energy to be used, that's an indication that energy is possibly being wasted, and something for you to investigate.

Understand the building to understand the energy profiles
To make sense of the energy profiles, you need to have good idea about what goes on in the building. Not everything that goes on in the building, just the things that relate to energy consumption.
Every building is different, but the following factors are commonly relevant:
Occupancy - when people come and go
What are the core occupancy hours (e.g. 9 to 5)? Are there multiple shifts (e.g. a day shift and a night shift)?
Do people ever work on-site outside of the core occupancy hours? Do certain staff stay on after official closing time? Does anyone come in on weekends or holidays?
HVAC - heating, ventilation and air conditioning
What fuels are used for heating (e.g. gas, electricity - see note below)?
Is there air conditioning? Is it used just for cooling in summer, or is it used all year round (e.g. to keep equipment cool)?
How is the heating controlled? Is it on a timer? When is it set to come on and off? Are there different timer settings for weekends and holidays?
It's important to be aware that most forms of gas heating also use electricity for fans, pumps and controls. For example, for a heating system consisting of a gas boiler connected to radiators, 5% or more of the total energy used will typically be electricity. This is particularly significant in cost terms because electricity usually costs several times more per kWh than gas.
Heating systems that involve ducted air will typically use a considerable amount of electricity (40% or so is not uncommon). Air conditioning also usually consumes a lot of electricity.
Lighting
What controls when the lights come on and off? Are they automatically controlled (e.g. by a sensor that detects movement or light-levels), or are they turned on and off by staff?
Do lights remain on when they're not needed (e.g. when staff have gone home, or when they're on lunch-break)?
Are there enough light-switches? For example, if one person is working late in a large open office, will 100 lights remain on to light just one desk?
NB Most buildings have different sets of lights for different purposes (e.g. a set of lights in the main office, a set of lights in the meeting rooms, a set of lights in the warehouse, a set of security lights outside). Your answers to the questions above may depend on which set of lights you're talking about.
Office equipment
Do staff turn their computers off when they leave work?
Is there office equipment such as photocopiers / printers? Is it turned off when not in use?
(NB Whilst interval data is perfect for looking at larger patterns and trends, it won't help you to figure out how much energy an individual computer or photocopier uses... For that task you'll want a simple plug-in Kill-A-Watt meter.)
Other energy-consuming equipment / processes
This could include anything from a printing room, to charging a fork-lift truck, to specialist production-line equipment.
What processes or items of equipment exist that use energy?
What sort of energy do they use (e.g. electricity, or gas, or both)?
When do they use energy? When do the processes run? When is the equipment switched on and off?
It's important to note that industrial processes can often dwarf all other types of energy consumption in a building. If a building has processes or items of equipment that consume a lot of energy, even small changes to the way that they're operated can often make a big difference to the energy bill.

Examples of energy waste shown in energy profiles
If you've read the previous sections of this article, you should already have a pretty good idea of the sorts of patterns to look for in energy profiles. Following are a few examples of energy waste, and the energy profiles that help to identify them:
(NB The energy profiles shown below were made with the Energy Lens software, which makes it easy to create energy profiles from interval energy data. You can download a free trial of Energy Lens, and create your own energy profiles in the click of a button.
High out-of-hours energy consumption
Energy wastage is very common during "out-of-hours" periods (e.g. at night and on weekends). For example, the figure below shows a section of a calendar plot created using half-hourly data from an office building:
This example strongly indicates that out-of-hours consumption is excessive. In the out-of-hours periods (Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday and Sunday), the building is using around 35% of the energy that it uses in peak consumption periods.
It is often necessary for a certain amount of equipment to operate during out-of-hours periods (e.g. security lighting or a central computer room). However, it's rare for the out-of-hours consumption to need to be as high as is demonstrated by the above figure. Such patterns indicate that there is huge potential to save energy by reducing the out-of-hours energy consumption.
Poor automatic control (especially HVAC)
Energy uses such as HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) should usually be closely tied to the occupancy hours. Considerable energy is wasted if a building is heated or cooled when nobody is using it, or if an entire building is heated or cooled when only a couple of rooms are in use.
On the right is a section of a calendar plot for an office. It looks like some equipment (probably the heating) came on automatically on an unoccupied bank-holiday Monday (30th May 2005).
The figure shows that the profile for the bank-holiday Monday was different to that of the other weekdays nearby. Less energy was used over the daytime hours because nobody was in the office using equipment such as lights or computers. However, a fair amount of energy was used, even though the building was unoccupied. This indicates that something was erroneously set to come on automatically, heating being the most likely suspect.
A more severe example would be that of a building with a heating timer that only allows a single on-time and a single off-time (as opposed to allowing different times to be set on different days). It's not uncommon for buildings to have such a timer, even when they operate on Monday to Friday only - this results in considerable wastage as the heating comes on unnecessarily every Saturday and Sunday.

How to create Energy awarness in your office , home where ever you are!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-03-01T21:24:00.000-08:00

Energy Conservation.

How to create Energy awarness in your office , home where ever you are!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Energy conservation is the practice of decreasing the quantity of energy used. It may be achieved through efficient energy use, in which case energy use is decreased while achieving a similar outcome, or by reduced consumption of energy services. Energy conservation may result in increase of financial capital, environmental value, national security, personal security, and human comfort. Individuals and organizations that are direct consumers of energy may want to conserve energy in order to reduce energy costs and promote economic security. Industrial and commercial users may want to increase efficiency and thus maximize profit.

Drop the Clichés and Make Your Energy-Awareness Campaign Hit Home
If your organization wants to save energy, it's important that your staff become aware of the energy consumption that they are responsible for. Simple changes in people's behaviour can quickly lead to significant energy savings, but such changes will only happen if the people are aware of the energy consumption that they have the power to control.
If you can guide and encourage them appropriately, your staff can probably achieve huge cuts in your organization's energy consumption. Everyone knows that saving energy is a good thing, but most people will only be motivated when you can demonstrate just how much energy they are wasting, and just how much potential there is for them to improve.
Essentially you need to raise the energy awareness of your staff. And for this, you need an energy-awareness campaign.
Now, typical preparation for an energy-awareness campaign might begin with a hunt for generic poster facts and figures, and generic pictures of light switches, children hugging trees, and polar bears on melting ice caps etc... But the problem with that approach is that most people have seen it all many times before, and consequently they rarely stop to think about the underlying message...
And, more importantly, there's actually a much better way to encourage the occupants of your building to take action to reduce their energy consumption...
The usual array of clichéd poster facts and figures are not nearly as effective as the targeted facts and figures that are specific to your organization, and that you can easily come up with yourself!
Because the more you can make your energy-awareness message directly relevant to your building, the more that your building's occupants will understand and appreciate it.
Though, just to be clear, we're not suggesting that your campaign shouldn't include polar bears at all...
Anyway... In this article we're not going to presume to tell you how many posters your energy-awareness campaign needs, or how often you should email your staff, or how long your rousing presentations on energy saving should be...
But what we will do is explain how highly-targeted facts and figures are the ideal way to drive an energy-awareness campaign, and we'll show you just how easy it is to come up with such facts and figures yourself.
And if that's not enough, there might just be another polar-bear picture too...
But before anything else, there's an important question to answer:
What exactly is energy awareness?
For a general definition, we think it would be reasonable to say that energy awareness is about understanding:
how much energy we use (both directly and indirectly);
what we actually use it for;
where the energy comes from;
the knock-on effects of us using it (e.g. environmental impact, depletion of resources); and
what we can do to reduce our energy consumption and its undesirable knock-on effects.
However, although that might be appropriate for a textbook definition of energy awareness, it sounds a lot like we're talking about the energy awareness of the human race as a whole. Not that there's anything wrong with a definition that talks about the human race as a whole, but thinking of energy awareness in that way is not ideal when you're trying to come up with an energy-awareness campaign that will reduce energy consumption at your organization...
Because, unless you happen to work for Energy Star or the Carbon Trust, most people in your organization will have other priorities, and getting them to understand the big picture of energy consumption will be something of a monumental challenge...
So here's the secret:
You don't need your building's occupants to gain a holistic awareness of energy consumption, you just need them to understand enough to stop wasting so much energy themselves!
And, since your mission is to save energy in your building, it's what the occupants do when they're at work that matters.
A definition that's more appropriate for your campaign
Energy awareness is about understanding that:
all day we're using energy in our building;
some things we do use a lot more energy than others;
simple changes in our habits can lead to big reductions in our building's energy consumption; and reducing our building's energy consumption is important!
On the surface, this isn't so different from our first definition of energy awareness. But the critical point is that this definition is much more local - it's all about people saving energy in your building. In other words, it's much closer to home.
By bringing your definition of energy awareness closer to the building that you want to save energy in, you'll make it easier for people to understand that their actions matter, and that they really do have the power to make an immediate difference to your building's energy consumption...
When your concept of energy awareness is closer to home, your campaign will naturally use messages, facts, and figures that are closer to home too. Such messages, facts, and figures will naturally resonate better with the people they're intended for, and this should have a significant impact on the savings that your campaign will achieve...
Using targeted facts and figures to bring your campaign closer to home
The more you can relate your facts and figures to the day-to-day actions of your staff, the more likely they will be to take action. So instead of using global statistics, or national statistics, or city-level statistics in your campaign, use statistics that are directly relevant to energy consumption at your organization...
Or, even better, use statistics that are directly relevant to energy consumption in your building...
Or, even better still, use statistics that are directly relevant to energy consumption on your floor of the building, or in your particular department.
The more that Bob in Accounts can see that his wasteful habits make a difference, the more that Bob in Accounts will feel inclined to do something about it.
How to get the figures you need to make your staff aware of their energy consumption
First, you need to build your own understanding of the building's energy consumption: how much energy it uses, what uses it, and when. Armed with this knowledge, your task of raising energy awareness amongst staff will be much easier, as you will be able to highlight the wastage that they are responsible for, and encourage them with evidence of the savings that they have made.
For this, you need good data
First things first: unless you have good quality energy data, you will struggle to get really useful figures. Weekly or monthly meter readings will never be able to tell you how much energy your building is using at different times throughout each day, and on the different days of the week - this level of detail really is necessary to calculate the focused, personalized figures that can have the biggest impact on the energy awareness of your staff.
Hopefully you will already have access to interval data such as 15-minute or half-hourly data - if not, you may want to look into getting smart metering fitted in your building.
The figures you need will come from analysis of your energy-consumption data. You might want to start by analyzing the last year's worth of energy data, although, if you don't have that much, just use what you can.
Figures to highlight energy waste that you want to target
The first thing to do is to look at your patterns of energy consumption to find energy waste. Once you have found energy waste, you should be able to quantify it in terms of how much energy is actually being wasted (remember that this is not an exact science - approximations are OK).
Start by estimating the wasted kWh, and then multiply these figures by cost-per-kWh and kg-CO2-per-kWh figures to get the equivalent cost and CO2 figures. Or, if you want to highlight waste as a percentage of some sort, simply look at the percentage differences between the kW or kWh figures from the appropriate time periods, buildings, floors, or departments that you want to compare.
Specific figures are generally best for raising energy awareness amongst staff. For example: "unnecessarily leaving equipment switched on when we go home is wasting x kWh, y pounds/dollars, and z kg CO2 on each night of the working week." Use your imagination a little - maybe look at energy consumption on weekends, or during lunch hours. If your building operates continuously every day, investigate the energy consumption of different shifts.
At the very least you should be able to come up with figures like: "each working day we use x kWh of energy, which costs y pounds/dollars, and causes z kg CO2 emissions." However, the better you can link your figures to specific parts of people's routines (e.g. specific days, times, or shifts), the more effective your figures will be for motivating action.
You might also be able to narrow your figures down to specific areas of your building, or to specific end uses of energy (e.g. heating, lighting). Your ability to do this may depend on the number of meters you have, although it's often possible to make some clever extrapolations and estimates. The more you can relate your figures to people's day-to-day routines and activities, the greater the energy awareness you will be able to build, and the greater the savings you'll be able to achieve.
Figures to demonstrate progress
Once you've found specific energy waste to target, quantified that waste, and encouraged staff to reduce that waste, you'll want to keep a close eye on changes in the energy performance of the days / times / areas / energy uses in question. Presenting staff with targeted figures that demonstrate the savings that they've achieved will be a great help in motivating them to continue making progress.
Bear from photo by René Ehrhardt
Bear motivating staff with evidence of progress (chart created using Energy Lens software)
Typically you'd do this on a weekly or monthly basis - our article on monthly energy-performance tracking has important guidance that applies either way.
It's important that the figures you use to demonstrate energy savings tie in with the figures you used to highlight the energy waste that you were targeting in the first place. As the article linked to above explains, focused analysis is usually the only reliable way to track improvements anyway.
But, just as important, savings relating to specific days, times, and activities, are a lot more motivating...
For example, if the staff in a particular office in a large building have managed to cut weekend energy consumption by 70%, publicizing that fact is going to be a lot more motivating than publicizing the smaller impact that their efforts have had on the building's total energy bill.
Software can help you with all of this
At the very least you'll want to use a spreadsheet like Excel to calculate your figures.
Though specialist software such as our Energy Lens package can make it a lot easier to calculate the sorts of figures that you need. Please feel free to download it and give it a go - it's designed specifically for this sort of work.
Energy Awareness Month can only do so much - ongoing effort is key
For most people, if they're heard of "energy awareness", it's probably because of Energy Awareness Week, or Energy Awareness Month. These observances are fantastic - they're putting energy awareness on people's radars. In fact, without Energy Awareness Month or Energy Awareness Week, you probably wouldn't even be reading this article, not least because we'd probably never have thought to write it.
But it's important to realize that only so much can be achieved in a day, a week, or a month, even when it comes around every year...
The best results by far will be achieved if you treat your energy-awareness campaign as an ongoing process. It doesn't have to be a full time job, but it will work a lot better if you make it part of your regular routine.
Hopefully this article will have given you some ideas on how you can start a once-weekly or a once-monthly routine of analyzing your organization's energy data to find waste and to track progress, and to turn what you find into facts and figures that you can use to motivate your staff to continue reducing your energy consumption as time goes on.
And if you can fit some polar bears into your campaign, all the better!