Energy savings are closely connected to asset management, as the condition of power assets can positively and negatively impact energy distribution. Here, Ville Luoma from ABB Electrification business area discusses how diligent asset management can be used to maximize energy efficiency. He also explores how the fundamentals of the ISO 50001 standard can provide an easy implementable strategy for utility operators to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, cut energy costs and increase competitiveness.
There is a saying that the cleanest kilowatt is the one never used. It’s a simple concept but one that makes a lot of sense – generating clean power is important, but using every kilowatt in the most efficient way is even more crucial. That’s why energy management is increasingly imperative in every aspect of business and industry.
Intrinsically linked to energy management is asset management. Effective asset management alongside energy management practices can help companies identify power losses, identify equipment that contributes to energy losses, track an asset’s service history and plan maintenance and replacements when required. This all positively impacts energy use and distribution.
Knowing where to start with embedding or improving asset management practices can be quite straightforward when you follow existing frameworks like the ISO 50001 standard.
To be able to access information about energy efficiency, you need an energy monitoring system
One of the major communities that drives energy efficiency and cleaner future topics is the Clean Energy Management Ministerial (CEM). The global forum promotes policies and programs that advance clean energy technology, to share lessons learned and best practices, and to encourage the transition to a global clean energy economy. The community has members from around the world, including the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, China, India, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Germany, Italy, Spain, Finland, and Sweden.
Energy Management Working is a priority initiative at CEM, promoting ISO 50001 as a “proven framework to manage energy use.” Part of the promotion involves giving Energy Management Leadership awards to organizations that have implemented the standard – to recognize their efforts in transforming their organizations and how they have found ways to save energy and reduce costs. With this practice, CEM shares experiences to inspire others to follow suit.
According to the Energy Management Working Group, energy management systems have the potential to save up to 30 percent of the total energy use in industry and up to 40 percent in commercial buildings.1 Thus, implementing ISO 50001 globally could cumulatively cut energy use by 62 exajoules by 2030 – saving more than $600 billion in energy costs and avoiding 6,500 megatons of CO2 emissions, which is equal to taking 215 million passenger vehicles off the road.2
One impressive example is from Canada, where industrial companies that have implemented ISO 50001 have achieved an average cumulative energy performance improvement of nearly 10 percent within the first two years. This has resulted in up to $2 million in annual energy cost savings for large Canadian companies.
In some countries, like Finland, commercial and industrial buildings are required to do energy audits regularly. In this case, becoming ISO 50001-certified is an advantage. With an ISO 50001-certified monitoring system, building owners are exempt from doing manual checks and costly audits on site. These kinds of regular manual checks can be replaced by certified, automated monitoring and measurement systems, that can be run on premise or in the cloud.
To transfer the information to actionable knowledge, you need an asset management system
So how does asset management contribute to an energy efficiency standard such as ISO 50001? Well, ISO 50001 promotes usage of the continuous improvement circle: Plan – Do – Check – Act and repeat. One of the key points is the evolution from checking to acting. To be able to identify the points of the distribution network where the power losses are happening, you need to have energy measurements in multiple parts of the network. However, this only provides the information that you need to act, not necessarily how to act.
To be able to transfer the information to actionable knowledge, you need an asset management system. Let’s look at an example: Based on past experience, we know that if there are loose connection joints inside switchgear or panels, it results in heating of the joints. This means that part of the energy is consumed in order to pass through the loose joints.
With correctly placed temperature sensors and asset monitoring features this can be easily detected, without having to visit the site. This also means we can plan to carry out maintenance work at the site more accurately and thus reduce the time needed on site. These are great both from a cost and safety perspective; ultimately better planning leads to a safer working environment and reduced time on site means cost savings.
For knowledge creation, data processing can happen in multiple places but actionable insights need to be collected in a central location
When looking at asset and energy management, it’s important to clearly distinguish between data, information, and knowledge. The reason for creating these borderlines is that it is not always necessary to collect the data in a central location.
The key thing is that information that can be processed and automatically converted into actionable knowledge is available in the central location; processing the data to information can be done on the edge or in the cloud. Or as it’s sometimes called ‘in the fog’, which in meteorological terms would refer to ‘a cloud close to the ground’.
Let’s take a practical example from a switchgear installation; we can have a protection relay and other monitoring and diagnostic devices that gather data from the sensors and utilize the communication network to pass that data onto the central location, i.e. the asset monitoring system.
From the asset monitoring system, the operator gets the knowledge to act upon. With such fully digitalized and correctly maintained medium-voltage switchgear with 14 feeders, you can save energy losses equal to 150 tons of CO2 during 30 years of service.3 That’s equivalent to the emissions produced by a mid-sized European car driven for 1,250,000 km.
Take aways
Examples have shown that organizations that have implemented ISO 50001 have reduced energy costs and increased competitiveness, while minimizing greenhouse gas emissions.
Asset management plays a pivotal role in maximizing energy efficiency. By applying both approaches it’s possible to generate real gains in both sustainability and competitiveness.
Top line benefits include:
- Identifying where the power losses are
- Identifying equipment that possibly contributes to energy losses (e.g. switchgear power loss analysis, measurements before and after the transformer)
- Tracking the service record of equipment
- Better planning of when to do maintenance or replace equipment
With effective energy and asset management, utility providers can improve their energy performance, their business performance and discover more of those elusive clean kilowatts.
1 https://www.cleanenergyministerial.org
2 https://cleanenergyministerial.org/campaign-clean-energy-ministerial/energy-management-campaign-graduated
3 https://new.abb.com/medium-voltage/switchgear/air-insulated/iec-and-other-standards/unigear-digital
