Apathetic buildings management is still too common, say Brussels mandarins.
So a new rule devised by the European Commission (EC) aims to plug holes in energy efficiency by enforcing regular energy audits for the first time.
Transposed in the UK as the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS), it is one of several elements in the 2012 Energy Efficiency Directive.
“Our policy impact assessment… has found that energy audits were far from being implemented consistently in enterprises,” says EC energy spokesperson Sabine Berger.
In compliance with the directive, ESOS targets larger organisations, described as enterprises. These may include private businesses and partnerships, charities, some universities and other institutions with more than 250 employees and an annual turnover of more than 50 million.
According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), around 7,300 UK enterprises will fall within the scope of ESOS. That compares with 4,400 to 6,400 large enterprises already reporting energy data. It is estimated that they currently occupy 170,000 to 200,000 buildings and account for around 35 per cent of UK energy consumption. Many new organisations untouched by previous energy requirements (such as Energy Performance Certificates or the Carbon Reduction Commitment) will be affected for the first time.
A 2013 DECC consultation indicates that enterprises will have to carry out an energy audit by 5 December 2015 and at least every four years from the date of the previous energy audit. Unlike many previous policies, ESOS goes beyond buildings and covers an enterprise’s transport and industrial processes.
And ESOS requires more than mere energy labels. According to the consultation, minimum compliance would require a review of the organisation’s total energy use and energy efficiency, and auditors would have to work out and state the energy intensity ratio. Minimum compliance would also include clear information on potential savings and recommendations for cost-effective countermeasures.
EC assessments have demonstrated that audits could yield major benefits.
“The impact of the mandatory audits, even without the obligation of implementing the most cost-effective measures as recommended by the energy audits, is projected to be between 8.6 Mtoe [million tonnes of oil equivalent] and 13 Mtoe,” points out Berger.
FMs not yet ready
Weaknesses in existing energy legislation may partly explain the new focus on audits and the push beyond top companies and major public buildings. Inadequate EPC [Electronic Product Code”> labels — whose characteristics vary between EU member states — are well documented, as are poorly defined label requirements and insufficiently trained official certification agencies. Energy labels are based on different assumptions.
In the UK, for example, many use criteria based on theoretical or potential performance rather than actual consumption and take into account the type of asset generalised across different buildings. The building assessment is based on various standard elements, but not the individual actual operating performance. This means EPCs are sometimes wrong. Given the impact of the building stock on greenhouse gases, a renewed attack on buildings emissions is necessary.
“The building sector counts for 9 per cent of EU 28 GDP [gross domestic product] and 8 per cent of EU employees. The untapped savings potential is therefore large,” says Berger.
But James Patterson, associate director for sustainability and energy at consultancy WSP, says in-house FMs in many companies may not yet be fully equipped for ESOS audits. He suggests that FMs tend to focus on smooth rather than energy-efficient buildings operation.
“FMs often have limited resources; they aren’t building engineers. They may not have energy efficiency on their radar and are often more concerned with space allocation or internal security,” he says.
WSP is an energy and environment consultancy that provides energy audit services.
The new requirements could come as a shock to some building managers. As Patterson says, many organisations may never have conducted an energy audit.
“Larger leading organisations have tried to do energy audits and already know where savings lie. But there is a whole order of other large enterprises that have no idea. To start with, there are a whole series of no-cost measures that can be put in place. As a simple example, time programmers and switches are often not correct in the first place.”
Whereas previous policies required energy measurements, ESOS is more demanding.
“In the past, organisations had to measure energy use and pay a penalty for emitting. In contrast, the energy audits are not about what you are emitting, but about how to make energy use reductions,” says Patterson.
Collecting the data
The first step in an audit is retrieving energy consumption data and company production figures (correlated to energy use in the case of manufacturing), as well as mapping lighting and heating.
The energy management of the building is then examined, followed by an assessment of opportunities to save energy and returns on investment where necessary. A buildings management system may often provide much of the data. But Patterson says: “Systems collect the data but in some cases no one is looking at it.”
And ISO 50002, a new energy audit standard under development, could in future be used as a compliance tool.
DECC has also consulted on the use of Green Deal assessments and Display Energy Certificates (DECs) as a compliance mechanism. But Patterson believes the latter option would be a mistake. “DECs could avoid compliance — they are simple and quite crude. It could devalue the whole process. It’s a well-intentioned piece of legislation that the government should use as an opportunity to bring value.”
Energy intensity measurements are an innovative feature of ESOS.
“Energy policies in the past usually required absolute values to be reported. But the energy consumption of a particular building in terms of number of occupants, for example, is not addressed at the moment,” says Peter Tse, principal design consultant at the Building Services Research and Information Association (BSRIA). The energy intensity definition is one of the points under consultation by DECC. Once agreed, a standard definition would allow better comparison between buildings and improve benchmarking techniques.
ESOS provides the option for in-house assessments by staff with knowledge of the specific business — a unique aspect of the scheme.
“With ESOS you don’t have to go to an external assessor — it can be a qualified internal person who delivers the audit. That is different from previous schemes and reduces costs. In some organisations, FMs could well be the employee closest to carrying out the job,” says Tse.
Managing and implementing
But DECC specifies that in-house experts should not be directly engaged in the activity being audited. For example, an energy manager directly responsible for operating energy management systems for specific buildings may not be the suitable person to audit those particular buildings.
However, DECC suggests that they would be considered sufficiently independent if there is a division of responsibility between overall energy managers and those responsible for implementation (such as buildings/facilities and site managers) on the ground.
Tse adds that the task may not be onerous, particularly as it may concern only a sample of the organisation’s operations.
“FMs are familiar with monitoring energy. The potential change is energy intensity and how to go about addressing it. It shouldn’t be too much for FMs, though — they are still dealing with absolute energy consumption but there is an additional step.”
DECC itself has made progress with government objectives included in the Energy Efficiency Directive. These require that 3 per cent of buildings with a useful area of over 500 sq m (250 m2from July 2015) owned and occupied by central government are renovated between 2014 and 2020. Alternatively, governments may take other measures to achieve equivalent energy savings by 2020. In December 2013, the government reported a 14 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in 2012-13 compared with the 2009-10 baseline, while 11 departments met or exceeded the 2014-15 target, compared with eight in 2011-12. Reduced energy consumption across the government estate is estimated to represent financial savings of £44 million in 2012-13 compared with 2009-10.
“The UK is required to report annually on progress. Only savings from 1 January 2014 count towards the target. Therefore it is too soon to say how well advanced the UK government is towards reaching this goal. Analysis conducted prior to implementation indicated that the UK could comfortably achieve the level of savings required,” says DECC spokesman Nisar Hussain.
The government’s performance is significant in that it provides a role model and sometimes procurement lead.
“It is clear that significant low-hanging fruit remains across Europe. The directive’s requirements are designed to mobilise member states in ensuring proposals are developed which aim to realise this potential and ensure that the public sector demonstrates leadership on energy efficiency,” he says.
In the UK, ESOS is expected to yield net benefits of around £1.7 billion realised by an average 0.7 per cent energy saving for each business covered by it. It could generate annual savings of around 2.5 TWh [terawatt hour] per year from buildings and industrial processes and 0.8TWh per year from transport. Enterprises will see most of this benefit in lower energy bills.
The cost of conducting an ESOS assessment for an individual enterprise will vary according the size and complexity of its operations. The average cost for each enterprise for the first round of ESOS assessments is expected to be about £17,000, with later assessments costing about £10,000 (including administration and the cost of the assessors’ visits, but excluding the cost of implementing recommendations).
Critics might well describe the requirement for energy audits/ESOS as yet another sticking plaster over a set of dysfunctional energy-efficiency policies. But it may at least for the first time yield actual energy consumption data within organisations rather than energy labels based on standardised assumptions. At the same time, it pushes companies to act rather than measure. That, in turn, could encourage performance improvement.
– See more at:http://www.fm-world.co.uk/features/feature-articles/creative-energy/#sthash.heBSLNw9.dpuf
