Managing energy is more about managing the
people than managing equipment in the organisation
When I started exploring the opportunities to further develop my career
in energy management I had the impression that being a technically sound person
would be the strongest advantage for me to excel or to convince others to save
their energy cost. However, that perception started to slowly vanishing as I am
moving further exploring energy management with different roles in different organisations.
It has been often seed that very brilliant and amazing engineering solutions
proposed by many being turned down despite its undisputed benefits, proven
success stories and assurance that all that will work to deliver the promised
results. I was baffled and clueless on why such things can happen until I
realized the key issues that I must understand and what to do to as solutions.
Being out here today in the market trying to sell my services as a
consultant has strengthen my feeling that energy management is far beyond just
competencies in providing engineering solutions. Finally, I realized that it is
not all about how good is the solutions and how much it can save energy costs
but it is more about how they see energy with their roles in organisations and
in their life. Who decides about energy in any place and that really matters.
Then who can influence those who have the final say in energy and these people
are also matters and finally it comes to who bear the costs of energy or who
pay the bill and they are ultimately matters the most.
Everyone
is looking at how they use energy differently. The challenge in promoting
efficient use of energy is to convey the same message to different groups of
people in the organisation through effective means of communication.
Then I came into the conclusion that managing these people and others
who are under their command or employed by them are the most critical factors
in effective and successful energy management program in any entity. It is all
about management of the human because there are the one who use, select, operate,
maintain and pay for anything that using energy in their day to day life at
work and home.
Why they do not really care about how they use energy at their
workplace?
Based on experiences as a consultant in communicating with different
level and group of people in many organisations, I believe the following could
be among the possible main reasons:
- It does not matter
because they do not pay energy bills themselves;
- There have been no energy
supply problems and the use of energy that making them feel is not their
job to save energy;
- Existing duties and
tasks are that much and they have no time to think about energy;
- No basis to do anything
or clear directives from the top management on how they supposed to
use energy in more efficiently.
Energy
being seen differently by different types of user in the organisation. Efforts
must be taken to ensure every user will understand and play their roles
accordingly .
Then how about the decision makers or the top management?
Why they seem
to ignore the importance of managing the energy efficiently too. Again, from
communicating with in various capacity over the years, I believe these could be
the reasons:
- Most decisions makers
sitting in the decision making chairs are not with technical background
and their decisions on energy matters are not connected to energy in many
business decision. Concerns on energy efficiency often highlighted and proposed
by the technical personnel or managers and these always been seen as
operational matters that have little effects on business performance
directly;
- The focus is more on
core businesses of the organisation where more profits as always
associated with more production outputs , quality and technology
improvement related matters and more sales as revenue generating strategies and
activities;
- Energy cost is too small
compare to overall operational costs of the organisation and potentials
energy costs savings from energy management do not trigger or attract much interest of the top
management;
- Many decision makers
are still not convinced about the results can be achieved especially with
the failure of the proponents of energy saving solutions to convince them
as viable and attractive business proposals instead of just as technical
proposals.
Looking and assessing all the above points, I finally must acknowledge
that being technically brilliant and advanced persons could be just not good
enough to get energy management moving forward in any organisation. I do not
see engineering approaches or solutions would be able to resolve issues related
to attitude and habits in using energy in people's life.
The
ability the convince decision makers to look at energy management as one of the
strategic elements in their business decisions will trigger the bigger wave of
the implementation at the organisation.
Skills and techniques to deal with the human especially in interaction
with them are equally important. Then I gradually changed my strategies and
approaches in selling the idea of energy management to people from different groups
and levels in every organisation. Messages on the importance of energy
management need to be conveyed to them in carefully planned strategies and
approaches for each target group. In the same time I have been also quickly
polishing more of my skills related to human behaviours and how to handle
accordingly to get the messages across.
The main objective is to instil the importance of having a systematic
approach and method in connecting all levels of people in the organisation to
share common goals and spirit in managing and using energy in their own
organisation.
When I summarized all components in an energy management system, I
clearly can see and understand how
crucial is the people's management factors in having an effective system to be
develop, implement, monitor and finally working for further improvements to
sustain and achieve better results.
If you are an engineer and technically sound person with the intention to
champion and drive energy management program in your organisation, you must
also possess skills in effective communications that will help you a lot all
the way. That skills will help you to be more effective and to feel more
confident to perform the followings:
- To convey the key
messages and convince the top management to indicate their commitment;
- To work with team
members in the internal organisation and inspire/motivate them;
- perform the energy
management planning works that will involve personnel from other departments;
- To create awareness to
all employees on the energy policy and their roles and
responsibilities in the implementation;
- To obtain on-going
feedback from personnel and data gathering to monitor energy performance;
and
- To prepare and present
progress and results of the system to convince the top management again to
continue to give their commitment.
So, the ability to manage the people will determine how successful and
how good the intended outputs of energy management program will be produced. The
way forward is how to sustain the performance and to get better results by
understanding more about how people can be more motivated and excited to get
more benefits from energy management in their businesses and life.
Introduction
to energy management system and standard
Applying energy management approach is an effective
strategy to implement initiatives to reduce energy costs from energy saving
measures.
For
organisations to be able to achieve sustainable energy management which is
mainly to ensure sustainability
if energy efficiency initiatives with changes in the organisation and personnel
and due to other factors such as costs, competitiveness, market requirements, depleting energy resources, green commitments towards mitigating impacts of global warming and etc.
With the uncertainty of global prices on energy which
finally will affect energy users in all sectors, energy management has become a
necessity and energy too has become one of the strategic resources that require
strategic attention in many organisations especially for business operators or
owners from energy intensive industries.
The typical basic structure of a sustainable energy management system is
in a cycle which consists of six main components namely commitment from the top
management, energy management policy, energy planning, implementation, system
checking and system review for
improvement as illustrated in the figure below.
The typical
sustainable energy management system implementation cycle for organisations
Details and tips on each element in the system development and
implementation will be explained further in my upcoming entry in this Effective
Implementation of Energy Management System for Businesses Series.
The importance of each element as shown in the above figure will depend
on at what stage the organisation will start their energy management
initiatives and for them to move forward in having a comprehensive and more
sustainable system in place.
For example, if the organisation is starting from the Business As Usual (BAU)
practices or energy is not properly managed on how it is being used in the
organisation, obtaining the commitment from the top management would be the
most important challenge to overcome.
What is ISO50001 Standards?
The development,
implementation and performance monitoring of the energy management system can
use key requirements outlined in the ISO50001:2011 Standard as the reference
which is an internationally recognized standard for energy management system.
ISO 50001 Standard on Energy Management System
was launched by International Standardization
Organisation on 15 June 2011. The standard later adopted by Malaysia
and known as Malaysian Standard MS ISO
50001:2011 Energy Management Systems - Requirements with Guidance for Use
in November 2011.
The standard is a global guide on requirements that establishes a
framework for commercial, institutional, and governmental facilities; and
entire organisations to manage energy efficiently. It is targeting broad
applicability across national economic sectors, it is estimated to influence up
to 60 % of the global energy use.
The adoption of ISO50001:2011 Standard in energy management program
development and implementation will assist in the followings:
- To provide organisations with technical and management strategies to increase energy efficiency, reduce costs, and improve environmental performance with a recognized framework for integrating energy efficiency into the organisation’s management practices; and
- To provide organisations an access to a single, harmonized standard for implementation across the organisation with a logical and consistent methodology for identifying and implementing improvements.
In summary, the standard covers the following
requirements for organisations to have a comprehensive and sustainable energy
management program implementation to achieve their intended targets and for
continual improvements:
- The appointment of management or an authorized representative by top management of the organisation to lead and sustain the energy management program;
- The establishment of internal energy management organisation with clearly defined roles and responsibilities of its members;
- Preparation of energy management policy for the organisation;
- Identification and ensuring compliance against legal and other requirements;
- Conducting energy reviews of existing energy sources and consumption;
- Creating energy base line as benchmark for improvement in energy performance at each the facilities;
- Establish energy performance indicators for energy performance monitoring and checking;
- The establishment energy management objectives and targets to be achieved;
- Preparation and approval of energy management action plan for implementation;
- To provide necessary trainings for energy management system development and implementation;
- Establishing necessary operational controls for control of energy consumption;
- Procedures and criteria on the design of energy efficient facilities, equipment, infrastructure, systems and processes right from project stage
- Procurement procedures and criteria of energy efficient equipment, instruments and services;
- Monitoring and measurement of energy consumption , performance indicators, significant energy uses and related variables; and
- Internal audit and scheduled management reviews for energy management system implementation.
The energy management system implementation will
enable the organisation to ensure all employees to contribute in achieving the
common objectives and targets for all its energy management program for the
company in long term.
It is expected with the process of development and implementation
of effective energy management system, all levels of personnel will gradually
embrace the energy efficiently culture in their daily life at work and also at
home.
The fundamentals of the proposed energy management
system is based on the Plan-Do-Check-Action (PDCA) management cycle concept. It
has been proven in many organisations that by adopting a systematic approach in
developing and implementing energy management system coupled with main low and
no-cost energy saving measures, the reduction from 5% to 10% of the total
energy consumption cost is achievable and can be sustained in a long term as
well.
In the next entry, I will share about the expectations from the top management
and tips on how to convince them for the organisation to be able to develop and
later implementing the energy management system effectively. This is mainly
because the commitment from the top management is the key and the most
important factor in successful implementation of energy management system in
any organisation. The top management must demonstrate its commitment to support
the implementation of the system and subsequently agree to continually improve
it to ensure the system remain relevant and effective in the way forward.
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