1. By 2020, Malaysia is expected to become net importer of oil base on a forecast Asia Pacific Energy Research Centre (APERC) in 2006.At present the government is subsidizing up to 70% of fuel used for generation and that is one of the reason why Malaysian is paying the existing rate of electrical energy to power their life.
2. How do you feel? Worry or we feel nothing at all. The PM has mentioned just few days ago that subsidies especially in the power sector will have to end one day and either we like it or not, once the subsidy is gradually taken away, we will have to pay much much more than what we are paying today. It would be fine if our income would increase accordingly but who can guarantee that?
3. We can blame it to everyone including the government later but how much control we might have over each of them.Why harping on something that we have no or little control when we have so much options in the way we use our energy? That is something we have more control over it. We do not to pay what we do not need to if we are efficient enough in using energy on our daily life.
4. Wasting energy is as easy as not wasting it. It is all up to our attitude. Most of the time we do not care. Simply because we can afford to pay but we never think why we can afford to pay it now. Sometime we seem happy enough wasting energy everywhere and in the same time using more money on top of that.
5. A simple example is, we do not mind to buy a thick blanket to sleep at night because we feel to cold but in the same time we set the temperature of air conditioner lower than 20 Degree Celcius at home. If we set it higher we do not need the blanket anyway and happy enough to additional RM50-RM60 per month just to use the thick blanket. And then in the same time we make a lot of noise every time the tariff increase occurred and later we need to pay extra RM20 every month. It is funny right since we have been paying more than that for something we do not really need for years before the tariff increase imposed.
6. When we go to work, we normally so comfortable investing more for coats or jackets to keep us warm at work but we have less control on the temperature. I have been in many building for various occasions and one thing that really obvious is, the temperature is too cold. It is strange since most of us were brought up in a warm and humid environment but we cannot stand for a while when we work at the office. Why? If we do not care when we pay it using our money at home, how can we expect we will care when the company paying the energy bill at the office?
7. It is actually up to us because the big change that may happen depending on small change in attitude today. Crying or complaining for our own ignorance can only make us more struggling with the energy costs that we need to pay to live in the future. This is especially when our country start to import energy where the government will have less control or no over the fluctuating price of fuel sources in the world.
This is a platform for me to share information, experiences, knowledge and raising concerns or issues that I believe would be able to to create awareness and promoting efficient use of energy at all walks of life. Do not let our future generations to struggle for energy sources to be used because we do not play our roles today.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Energy Audit
1. I often received feed backs and remarks from many people especially from industrial and commercial building sectors that energy audit is very costly.
No doubt they are right especially in our country where energy auditing is not a regulated field yet.
2. Energy audit can be very costly only when everything will be done the the external experts or consultants. As some came from energy auditing field, I used to charge our the client based on scope of works and outputs expected to be delivered by the client. For some clients, they have defined clearly what they need from the auditors and this is where the cost to have their services in the whole energy process will be much much less.
3. The understanding about the energy audit itself is important before we decided to have an energy audit. Fees to conduct the audit will depend the type of energy audit that they need because each type of audit will require different level of depth and details that need to be audited and analyzed.
4. What is energy audit?
Briefly it can defined as a systematic methods to identify information anda data of the supply and the usage of energy which will be used to identify measures and actions to be taken to save energy. Implemented measures will result to the increase in the energy efficiency performance of the plant.
5. Energy audit can be done at the plant, system or equipment level. The bigger the level, the bigger the tasks to be carried out and the higher the costs will be involved.
6. Energy audit generally can be categorized into two types:
i) Simple audit - desktop analysis for common data and information available (bills, invoices), less measurements and site data collections, saving measures will not involve any cost or low cost
ii) Detailed/Comprehensive audit- more detailed data analysis from available data and more measurements, high cost saving measures, require detail financial analysis
7. Pre requirements to conduct energy audit:
i) The Commitment to implement audit findings- it will be a waste of time and resources if no actions taken
ii) The understanding of the energy audit type, process and activities- to identify who can perform each task
iii) The level of details expected from energy saving recommendations.
- more details analysis required, more cost may be involved depending on type of audit
8. Main requirements to perform an energy audit:
i) Energy Auditor - Internal or external or that combination of the two.
ii) Energy audit equipment - mainly data measurement and recording devices
iii)Allocation of budget and time
iv) Availability and accessibility of energy data and information
9. Knowing some information on energy audit itself will help to decide on what type of energy audit that need to be performed at the plant. In the end it will decide on what is expected from the audit to achieve the ultimate objective for the plant and definitely will affect costs to be incurred.
10. Energy audit would not save energy but it will prescribe the most accurate approaches and methods to be us used to save energy. However, a good audit not necessarily too costly although it may involve external parties such as a consultant.
11. The ideal way is, utilize the internal personnel by giving them some training on how to conduct energy audit since they know the plant better than anyone. Get assistance from external parties only on a need basis especially on certain subject matters such as new technologies, specific data analysis and etc where normally they are the real experts.
No doubt they are right especially in our country where energy auditing is not a regulated field yet.
2. Energy audit can be very costly only when everything will be done the the external experts or consultants. As some came from energy auditing field, I used to charge our the client based on scope of works and outputs expected to be delivered by the client. For some clients, they have defined clearly what they need from the auditors and this is where the cost to have their services in the whole energy process will be much much less.
3. The understanding about the energy audit itself is important before we decided to have an energy audit. Fees to conduct the audit will depend the type of energy audit that they need because each type of audit will require different level of depth and details that need to be audited and analyzed.
4. What is energy audit?
Briefly it can defined as a systematic methods to identify information anda data of the supply and the usage of energy which will be used to identify measures and actions to be taken to save energy. Implemented measures will result to the increase in the energy efficiency performance of the plant.
5. Energy audit can be done at the plant, system or equipment level. The bigger the level, the bigger the tasks to be carried out and the higher the costs will be involved.
6. Energy audit generally can be categorized into two types:
i) Simple audit - desktop analysis for common data and information available (bills, invoices), less measurements and site data collections, saving measures will not involve any cost or low cost
ii) Detailed/Comprehensive audit- more detailed data analysis from available data and more measurements, high cost saving measures, require detail financial analysis
7. Pre requirements to conduct energy audit:
i) The Commitment to implement audit findings- it will be a waste of time and resources if no actions taken
ii) The understanding of the energy audit type, process and activities- to identify who can perform each task
iii) The level of details expected from energy saving recommendations.
- more details analysis required, more cost may be involved depending on type of audit
8. Main requirements to perform an energy audit:
i) Energy Auditor - Internal or external or that combination of the two.
ii) Energy audit equipment - mainly data measurement and recording devices
iii)Allocation of budget and time
iv) Availability and accessibility of energy data and information
9. Knowing some information on energy audit itself will help to decide on what type of energy audit that need to be performed at the plant. In the end it will decide on what is expected from the audit to achieve the ultimate objective for the plant and definitely will affect costs to be incurred.
10. Energy audit would not save energy but it will prescribe the most accurate approaches and methods to be us used to save energy. However, a good audit not necessarily too costly although it may involve external parties such as a consultant.
11. The ideal way is, utilize the internal personnel by giving them some training on how to conduct energy audit since they know the plant better than anyone. Get assistance from external parties only on a need basis especially on certain subject matters such as new technologies, specific data analysis and etc where normally they are the real experts.
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