Lesson 3 - Environmental Sustainability SAQ

* You have been asked to develop an energy management system for your brewery. Listed below are the key steps you must consider. Write a brief description of each step and give an example of how the energy management system you are creating would incorporate them.

a)    Boundary

b)    Baseline

c)    Metering

d)    KPIs

e)    Benchmarking

f)     Goals and targets

g)    Improvement projects

Response:

In developing an energy management system for your brewery, the following steps will need to be considered.

a)              Boundary

The first step in developing an energy management system is to define and agree on the boundary of what we want to manage within the system. This is important as it will help us stay focused on the areas we have agreed to be the most significant to manage. Doing this ensures everyone has the same understanding and that we collect the right data to measure and recognise energy use and its performance.

To set the boundary, we need to collect the following data if it is available:

• Site maps

• Process flow diagrams

• Utility drawings

• Energy data use

• Organisations charts

Alongside the production areas, we need to decide whether to include energy usage information from other areas of the site, such as the energy used in the administration office (if this is in a separate building).

b)              Baseline

Developing a baseline helps us to understand where the system is starting from with regards to energy use. This is important so we can know the total energy used across the site, and at more granular levels, where this data is available. We also need to understand if there is any renewable energy generation on-site. It is important we include all the energy sources we use, whether renewable or non-renewable, to get a complete picture of the total amount of energy the site demands and how much we are spending on it.

We should access utility bills and meter readings from the total site level for electricity and natural gas for the last year. To understand the trends of energy use linked to beer production volumes, baseline production data should also be collected for the same time scale as the data collected on energy consumption.

The energy use data can then be divided over production data to give a ratio of energy use to how much beer is produced. This helps us to see trends in how much energy is used over different production periods.

c)               Metering

Metering is an important part of accurately understanding how much energy is being used, where it is being used in the brewery, and whether it can be better controlled.

The brewery is likely to have metering for electricity and natural gas at a total site level. While this is useful, it does not allow us to see the consumption at a department or equipment level. This limits our ability to understand where we should focus our efforts on controlling energy use.

To obtain better information on energy use, we should make a business case for investment in more granular metering. This would start by investigating areas that are the most energy-intensive and therefore have a greater likelihood of generating cost savings from reducing energy use. We can do this by using estimations and temporary meters.

Ideally, we want to build in greater automation from the start of the project so we should aim to invest in metering that can automatically transmit readings to a cloud-based management system where the data can be accessed and utilised.

d)              Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Performance is tracked against KPIs, which are metrics chosen to monitor what is important. For energy, these can include efficiency in mJ/hL and the percentage of renewable energy in % of total energy use. Choosing the right KPIs is important in tracking and monitoring the most significant variables so we can understand and improve energy performance.

To develop the right KPIs, we must ensure that they:

• Are based on data that is available and can be collected at the necessary frequency.

• Can be measured with appropriate frequency, such as hourly, daily and weekly.

• Resonate with the brewery management and are connected to the objectives of the brewery.

• Are easy to understand and act on.

• Have accountability for performance and are shared by those who can act on them.

As with metering, we should also investigate the use of cloud-based management systems that draw on metering data to calculate and track real performance and expected performance on our chosen KPIs. This enables us to understand better and act on variances from expected performance.

e)              Benchmarking

Benchmarking is a useful and essential way to understand how current energy efficiency performance compares to other breweries as well as discovering areas where performance can be improved.

To achieve this, we must initially plan to benchmark our performance with published data to get a general understanding of it. Subsequently, we should aim to benchmark with other similar breweries that we know through professional networks. We need to take care to understand how different metrics and KPIs are measured so that any difference can be taken into account of the performance.

f)                Goals and targets

A goal is a long-term vision of an organisation’s energy management programme, often tied to internal policy or strategy.

A target is a detailed, measurable and incremental step aligned to facilitate achieving the defined goal.

Within an energy management context, a goal could be longer-term and set an ambitious target for future energy use performance or on the sources of energy used. Targeting involves setting levels for the KPIs we have chosen to monitor so that they can be realistically achieved over a set period. Energy users need to share responsibility for goals and targets if they are to be successful.

g)              Improvement projects

An essential part of energy management is finding and implementing energy improvement projects. These can include measures that will increase energy efficiency as well as projects to increase renewable energy use.

The following steps can be utilised:

• Audit the process to produce and evaluate findings

• Develop an action plan and finance case

• Make modification and investment

• Re-evaluate process performance

• Assess energy saving and financial implications

Alongside the other elements of the energy management system, these steps will allow us to develop a process of continuous improvement on energy.

Overall, implementing an energy management system is one way we can systematically work to reduce energy use. It is vital we view the processes as a journey of continuous improvement.