Plant Services - August 2008 - (Page 62) energy eXPerT Visualize the Invisible Drawing attention is a fundamental part of any effective energy strategy sults. In most companies, there’s nothing more boring and hen walking through Copenhagen or Manunattractive than the energy report. At one company, the nheim on a sunny day under blue skies, am I monthly reports were 10 pages of tiny-print Excel spreadreally aware of the decades of integrated ensheets. They basically went unread, so management was unergy strategies that put them among the most efficient and aware of an impending crisis in energy costs. They underleast-polluting cities on the planet? The efficiency of the scored the feeling that energy is a purely operational issue, buildings, the widespread use of district heating, the heat and not a strategic senior-management issue. recovery from electric generation and the comprehensive The new energy manager distilled the cost, usage and use of nontraditional fuels and renewable energy are invisgreenhouse gas data into some simple, colorful bar charts. ible. Even less visible are the enormous competitive edges These clearly told a story of improving effithese approaches have produced for the Danciency being overwhelmed by energy price inish and German energy productivity induscreases. The heightened awareness triggered tries. They’ve cut their teeth serving their Management home markets, and now enjoy enviable market was unaware of a root-and-branch look at every aspect of energy productivity, including procurement, shares around a world waking up to the need an impending efficiency and new production technology. for energy efficiency. crisis in energy It also triggered a basic reassessment of the It’s no different in an energy-efficient plant. company’s stance on tracking and managing The visitor walking though a Toyota facility costs. greenhouse gas emissions. won’t see the dollars of energy cost saved on It’s rare to see energy reports presented in a each vehicle. But competitors see the profit way that is relevant to the targeted audience. Energy teams advantage when those dollars are multiplied by the nearly should take some accountability for not getting the support 10 million cars Toyota makes every year. they think they deserve. If the reports for the financial leadEffective breakthrough energy-management programs, ers are too technical and for the technical leaders, too fiespecially in the early stages, focus heavily on making the nancial, and too boring for everyone else, it’s not hard to see invisible visible. It’s critically important to engage and suswhy the messages are missed. tain the attention of senior business and financial manageLeaders say energy efficiency is a high priority, then fail ment. I always remember a particularly creative example of to demonstrate that fact in words and deeds. Visible public communicating the impact of energy use in a glass furnace recognition for effective energy management should be a to the financial staff. The plant energy team attached an regular event in a company seeking to change its energy culultrasonic flow meter to the gas line, and instead of caliture. In most companies, breakthrough energy performance brating in gigajoules or cubic meters, they used dollars at drops millions of dollars to the bottom line, and should be the current tariff. When visitors walked past the large LED celebrated every bit as enthusiastically as new orders. display showing thousands of dollars an hour going into the The great ideas I’ve seen to visualize energy performance furnace, the question as to how to slow the meter quickly from world-class energy teams would fill a book, and are came to the fore. limited only by the creativity of the participants. However, I’ve seen cogeneration installations consciously designed they’re still the minority. If we don’t turn our attention to to have space for visitors to be briefed on the benefits, LCD the challenge of energy productivity, most organizations displays showing greenhouse gas and energy economics will turn in mediocre to poor energy results. In today’s compared to “business as usual,” and oversized meters that world, that increasingly means poor business results. were easily read and explained. When visualization features like these are designed in from the start, the incremental costs are trivial, and the ongoing value is huge. Peter Garforth is principal of Garforth International LLC, Toledo, We also fall down when it comes to reporting energy reOhio. He can be reached at garforthp@cs.com. 62 www.PLANTSERVICES.com August 2008 W http://www.PLANTSERVICES.com
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