Energy efficiency and electricty
Energy efficiency and electricty
This is an excerpt from energy efficiency in electrical distribution chapter in The Electrical Installation Guide. You can download this excerpt which looks at energy efficiency and electricity by simply downloading the energy efficiency in electrical distribution chapter by clicking here.
The world is now ready for energy-efficient actions and programs
The first big movement was initiated by the Kyoto protocol in 1997, updated in 2006.
This well known world wide agreement requires participating countries to collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions to an annual average of about 5 percent below the 1990 level over the 2008-2012 period.
The protocol is based on three primary market mechanisms:
- The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), arrangement for reductions to be "sponsored" in countries not bound by emission targets.
- Joint Implementation, program that allows industrialized countries to meet part of their required cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions by implementing projects that reduce emissions in other countries.
- Emissions trading, mechanism through which Parties with emission commitments may trade units of their emission allowances with other Parties because they are ahead of their target. This is the so called “carbon market”.
All geographic areas at country, regional and federal level have launched programs, actions, regulations:
- Regulations and standards enforced in Europe (Fig. K1),
- Vision and strong initiatives in Asia.
- Strong programs in the US
Drivers to develop energy efficiency programs – especially on the electrical form of energy - are getting stronger and stronger. Energy Efficiency plan is at the top of the agenda for a growing number of companies:
- Buildings are the biggest energy consumers and a priority target,
- With cost of energy multiplied by 2 in the last 3 years, electricity saving is becoming a significant source of productivity gain for the industry,
- Saving energy is now a part of the Corporate Social Responsibility commitment of
most listed companies, - With production and distribution networks under increased pressure from rising demand and scarce resources, availability of electricity is a rising concern for Industry heavily impacted by the consequences of outages,
- The residential sector is a key sector and more and more impacted.
A new challenge: electrical data
All of the features of the current developments lead to the appearance of a “NewElectrical World” in which the key considerations will be:
- Controlling risks related to power outages
- Energy yield or efficiency and control of costs: MWh price increased between 2003 and 2006 from 30€ up to 60€ for deregulated markets in Europe
- Renewable energy
- The environment and sustainable development.
Electricity usage will become smarter and more rational to contribute both to the competitiveness of companies, their energy independence and protection of the environment. These new ground-rules mean that corporate decision makers have to implement new resources, and in particular products and services to accompany electricity consumers in this approach.
In particular, the setting up of a global information system in the company will allow comprehensive electrical performance data to be streamed, in real time and remotely for (Fig. K2):
- Predicting electrical network non-availability,
- Recording electrical quality,
- Optimizing consumption per building, sector, unit, workshop, site, excessive consumption or abnormal variations. We will therefore have all of the data required to make direct savings on electricity billing. End users can therefore take advantage of electrical network monitoring to avoid any wastage and to supply energy where it
is really necessary. - Organizing electrical equipment maintenance.
- Better purchasing of electrical energy and in certain cases, better resale.
