Energy Management

At the Energy Manager's Training Course on 19 June 2012

1. I have been a regular expert speaker in a series of events related to capacity building in energy management by MAESCO since 2009. The recent one is the Energy Manager's Training Course which was conducted at Shah Village Hotel, Petaling Jaya from 18-22 June 2012.

The participants were from various sector such as manufacturing, building, consultancy and also others who have some interest to embark on energy efficiency services. The next sessions will be in  September and December and details can be accessed at www.maesco.org.my

2. My session was on the second day and topics covered were energy resources & cost, energy management system and standards in energy management. Other topics covered by other speakers mainly on energy conservation measures, energy efficient technologies, energy audit, EE financing, energy monitoring & verification and etc.

3. For my topics , I have developed the presentation materials based on knowledge and experiences I gained from my participation in the industry over the years, from trainings organized by various EE related organizations such as Energy Conservation Centre of Japan(ECCJ), Institute of Energy Economic of Japan(IEEJ), The Energy Resources InstituteTERI) of India  and  United Nations Environmental Program(UNEP). 

4. On top of that, I also integrate the contents from input and information shared by other EE experts when I attended seminars, meetings, dialogues,forums and etc at local and international stages.

I must admit that attending various EE related trainings and exposure to EE at international level have been one of the best ways to learn and I gained so much in terms of knowledge and experiences too.

Why I chose Energy Management related topics?

5. There are many areas in EE that I have been involved in my career so far. As a practitioner I am competent to conduct energy audit for almost all type of facilities such as buildings and factories. For energy conservation measures, I have implemented measures my clients, managed the works and also measured the savings achieved from each measure for reporting and billing purposes.

6. When I was in the government, I involved very much on three areas namely regulatory works for EE covering designated big energy users and electrical appliances, awareness programs and finally the EE policy development and strategic implementation plan for the national level.

7.Across  all that, I have been  recognized as one of the regular speakers for various EE events and in these events, I was exposed to more people mostly  from the  management level  and decision makers too.

8. After performing some personal analysis on which area that I need to specialize in EE, finally I decided to choose energy management as an area that I wanted to become an expert  at national and international level. I personally concluded that , since I embarked into this EE field years ago, the technical or engineering solutions has been  the common concerns of many if they want to become more energy efficient but I believe  in the same time the management solutions is equally important to enable them to implement technical or engineering measures to save energy. I have seen so many viable and attractive EE projects that could not  be implemented due to the failure of the management groups or decision makers in in the organization to be convinced.

9. So, I prefer to complement the roles that have been played by others  to promote  EE technologies and practices to save their energy costs with some initiatives to tackle the management groups and decision makers where these people mostly have less interest on technical details of energy conservation methodologies.

10. The management people normally  look after the strategic components related  to financial  performance of the company and their core businesses.

Written test for participants at the end of the day

11. Energy management is the topic that may pull the management groups to listen to.Educating the on how critical of roles that can be played with little time that have to spend on it will be crucial to get their buy-in to enable the organization to embark on EE in a sustainable manner.

12. Those are among the main reasons on why I am now specializing in energy management in promoting and developing EE industry in Malaysia. As an industrial player, I am now able to provide both the technical  and management solutions to  the  market with technical part to be delivered by my engineering team and the lead for the delivery of the management solutions is me myself.

13. Personally, knowledge sharing is something that I really like to do and by involving in capacity building program such as trainings is one to the most effective channels  for it.

14. With the launching of ISO50001:2011 - Energy Management System Standard on June 2011, I strongly believe that everyone has the proper tool  to sell to the management groups on the needs to embark to EE in a holistic way. Then they would enjoy the obvious benefits later especially for those with energy costs have significant impacts to their operations and profits!