Energy Improvement Strategies

Control and overall management of all costs is vital to the success of any business. Energy is both a controllable cost and currently a focus of much environmental legislation, regulation and taxation (such as the forthcoming Climate Change Levy) on industry.

A company implementing an EMS may have already identified the fact that a lack of energy management and monitoring on site is a significant environmental effect and are targeting it in their improvement programme.

Being a cost that can be controlled with relative ease however, means that all companies, regardless of whether they are implementing an EMS should look at it. All companies should keep a close check on the amount of energy consumed through regular monitoring - which will enable them to assess the effectiveness of any energy efficiency measures implemented. Most energy efficiency projects involve low cost and no cost measures that have small payback periods.

Typical Uses of Energy in Industry:

• production process, operation,plant etc
  
  
• wastes treatment
  
  
• space heating and lighting
  
  
• transport (which is covered in the transport unit later on)
  
  
• all heating and cooling processes
  
  

Sources of energy efficiency information:

There are a number of common cost saving measures that can be implemented. The Energy Efficiency best practice programme is useful for advice and has a range of publications giving technical and managerial advice, ranging from choosing electrical motors, to raising staff awareness and motivation in energy efficiency.