Well good day to you all. It's been a while since I posted on here, been wrapped up with the usual work/life balance thing. Anyway The direction that I wish my energy blog to take for the foreseeable future is with auditing. Commonly reffered to as recomissioning energy auditing is a fundamental process in a companies endeavour to achieve real efficiencies.
It is common place for building HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning)systems to be out of calibration. Old lighting systems still in abundance, heating and cooling occuring at the same time and so on. Energy auditing can be simple or complex. Generally speaking there are 3 levels of energy audit. The first level is as the number suggests the most basic and with a certain amount of information a straight forward desktop study can be undertaken to help establish where efficiencies are being reduced and can be improved upon.
A level 1 energy audit usually leads to a level 2 type energy audit which is carried out on an advanced scale and will usually include an energy balance. A level 3 energy audit is the process of tnedering and installation. I would say that producing an energy balance is perhaps the most comprehensive and time consuming exercise of the audit - apart form the skill invlolved in determining where savings can be achieved obviously. It is definately technically challenging to achieve an accurate balance.
The energy balance consists of every single electrical consuming item to be recorded as well as its power rating. This includes things such as IT equipment, kitchen equipment, HVAC, lighting, specialist equipment and the like. Collating this information in itself will take up most of the time on a site visit. The trick is to accurately determine the power of every unit and then, with a combination of recording electrical consumption with data loggers and estimation through observations on site and experience - to determine the "energy balance". I believe the most accurate method for checking if this has been achieved properly is by cross referencing the hourly consumption that has been calculated, matches the half hourly/hourly data either provided by the client or supplied direct from the supplier/retailer.
The results are usually displayed in either a pie chart or a bar graph and displays each sections energy consumption every hour over a 24 hour period. It is usual to provide a number of balances e.g. Winter/summer - gas/electric etc. This tool then helps the auditor to determine at a glance where the most efficiencies in energy can be achieved and therefore where to direct most of his attention.
So then, the next and subsequent posts will centre on one aspect of auditing, whether this is lighting or IT equipment.
Until then,
Snapa
Energy efficiency and the environment
