energy management by Industry

Energy Management Standards and Industrial Energy Efficiency

Energy management seeks to influence how energy is managed in industry, which is the single greatest barrier to realizing a potential energy efficiency improvement of 20% or more over the next 15 years. The challenge is to provide a business- friendly mechanism for applying the same types of management practices to energy that it already applies to other resources such as labor and materials.

Industry requires standardization to function and prosper; an energy management standard simply builds on management best practices already well-known to many industrial facilities. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has recognized this opportunity by making energy management one of its top five global priorities through the initiation of work on ISO 50001- Energy management. ISO 50001: Energy Management seeks to provide the same culture of continuous improvement that has been successfully applied by industrial firms to quality and safety practices. ISO 50001 has the potential to become a global trade catalyst for industrial energy efficiency in the same way that ISO 9001 has for quality. The reason lies in the fact that industrial energy management makes good economic sense, leading to cost reduction and improved reliability, thereby contributing to greater productivity and improved competitiveness.

LBNL researcher, Aimee McKane, serves as Vice-Chair of the US Technical Advisory Group to the ISO Project Committee 242, the ISO body charged with developing ISO 50001 under leadership from the U.S. and Brazil. The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)has been a primary driver in encouraging an international focus on industrial energy management. UNIDO hosted an Experts Group meeting in March 2007 that also produced anissues paper on national energy management standards already in use. UNIDO and the Standardization Administration of China hosted a Working Group meeting in April 2008 to accelerate work toward a harmonized standard. Researchers from LBNL and Georgia Institute of Technology conduct detailed research on energy management standards for this meeting.

Although there are examples of large multi-national corporations who have initiated their own energy management programs, most companies are simply not able to implement an energy management program without technical assistance. The Industrial Standards Framework is a fully-developed approach based on years of experience in developing training programs and tools to encourage greater motor system energy efficiency. At the core of the Framework is ISO 50001.

For more information on industrial energy management and enabling policies, see Policies for Promoting Industrial Energy Efficiency in Developing Countries and Transition Economies.

LBNL researchers are also working with the U.S. Department of Energy and a public/private partnership named Superior Energy Performance to design a program to certify U.S. industrial plants for energy efficiency. This program, now in the pilot phase, will be launched nationally in early 2010. The central element of the program is the current national energy management standard, ANSI Management System for Energy 2000:2008, to be replaced by ISO 50001 when it becomes available in early 2011.

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