There is growing interest among policy makers and others regarding the role that industrial energy efficiency can play in mitigation of climate change. For over 10 years, the US Environmental ...Protection Agency (EPA) has supported the development of sector-specific industrial energy efficiency case studies using statistical analysis of plant level on energy use, controlling for a variety of plant production activities and characteristics. These case studies are the basis for the ENERGY STAR
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Energy Performance Indicators (EPIs). These case studies fill an important gap by estimating the distribution of efficiency using detailed, sector-specific, plant-level data. These estimated distributions allow Energy Star to create “energy-efficient plant benchmarks” in a variety of industries using the upper quartile of the estimated efficiency distribution. Case studies have been conducted for 14 broad industries, 2 dozen sectors, and many more detailed product types. This paper is a meta-analysis of the approach that has been used in this research and the general findings regarding the estimated distribution of performance within and across industries. We find that there are few sectors that are well represented by a simple “energy per widget” benchmark that less energy-intensive sectors tend to exhibit a wider range of within-industry efficiency than energy-intensive sectors, but changes over time in the level and range of energy efficiency do not reveal any single pattern.
The present paper aims to evaluate the energy use, the variables that affect the electric energy consumption of a public building to develop energy performance indicators based on ISO 50001 and ISO ...50006, in addition to simulating and evaluating proposals for Energy Efficiency Actions having as study case in point, the restaurant of the Federal University of the Semi-Arid Region (UFERSA), at Caraúbas, located in the northeast region of Brazil, with a semi-arid climate characterized by high temperatures and thermal sensation. The application of the methodology resulted in more than 50% of final energy use being concentrated in air conditioning and refrigeration, for environments or food. Relevant variables were established and verified graphically and statistically, as well as determining static factors that influence consumption, among them air temperature (°C) has the greatest effect on the building. Two Energy Performance Indicators (EnPI) were determined, the active energy consumed per square meter per year, 60.70 kWh/m 2 /year, and the active energy per user per year, 0.83 kWh/m 2 /year, when compared using reference values, it was determined that the building can be classified as energy efficient in terms of the first indicator. Energy efficiency actions was simulated, use of more efficient air conditioning units, application of thermal insulation on the roof and replacement of single-glazed windows with insulated glass were evaluated and compared, technically and economically, against the investment in a grid-connected photovoltaic system, for the same building and based on the Brazilian INI-C methodology, it was assessed whether this building would be classified as Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) and Positive Energy Buildings (PEB).
The electricity distribution system is going through a period of great transformations, arising from several factors from technological advances to regulatory changes, changing the traditional ...relationships between customers, energy market, and operators of distribution systems. Among the technological factors, distributed energy resources (DERs) stand out, which, in addition to being a good operational and economic alternative, contextualizes and contributes to the energy transition scenario. In Brazil, distributed generation, especially photovoltaic, is expanding significantly, adding the power customer to the role of supplier of excess energy to the electrical grid. In this context, this work is situated, considering photovoltaic generation and energy efficiency as distributed energy resources, customer units in two different parts of the country were used as a living laboratory, one in the semi-arid region of the Brazilian Northeast and the other in the Center region West with tropical climate, both with excellent values of direct normal irradiation, but with temperature variations throughout the year, providing the comparison and analysis of the behavior of the installed load and photovoltaic generation, through the determination of energy performance indicators. Parameters of power and energy, total and individual harmonic distortion, direct normal irradiance, and ambient temperature were used as study variables to characterize and correlate both with the performance of distributed generation and with energy efficiency actions in air conditioning. Energy performance indicators (EnPI) are mainly used in energy management systems, however, this work deals with the extrapolation of their application, to contribute to the operational and market areas, considering scenarios of use of multiple distributed energy resources, in which through the indicators it becomes possible to quantify and compare the performance between these resources.
Three energy benchmarks, i.e., Specific Energy Consumption (SEC), Energy Utilization Index (EUI) and Energy Performance Indicator (EnPI), were investigated for assessment of energy consumption in ...twenty-three designated public university buildings in Thailand. Advantages and limitations of these benchmarks were reviewed. Among the three energy benchmarks, the SEC is more convenient to be used since all required data are readily available for use. However, the SEC must be used for its own sector. Actual energy consumption of these buildings was compared with the EUI baseline energy consumption. The EUI equation was developed based on the 2007 energy consumption data. The EnPI used the up-to-date data from the building energy auditing. It is imperative that several parameters must be sufficiently collected to establish the EnPI baseline energy consumption. To establish energy benchmarks properly, policymakers need to understand which benchmark is suitable as an indicator for energy consumption for each building.
The electro-energetic efficiency of Industrial Systems and Processes (IS&P) is currently monitored by using different types of Energy Performance Indicators (EPI). The EPI represents a ratio between ...energy spent kWh per unit of product, area, volume, or other quantity directly related to production. The EPI values are supposed to be collected in a centralized data system enabling benchmarking activity at national level. One of the major barriers for this process is related to ethical and legal issues impeding disclosure of proprietary information. The tedious normalization process due mainly to volatile and un-reliable reference value is another major barrier for benchmarking process. As a result the accuracy of benchmarking IS&P represents always a challenge for governments and for corporations implementing ISO 50001. The paper proposes a new concept of using of Mathematical Model Benchmarking (MMB). The unitless indicator i.e. Benchmark Energy Factor (BEF) overcomes the current barriers. The paper presents the basics of MMB and basic use of BEF for a case study inspired from real life. The MMB concept can be used by any IS&P owner enabling easy implementation of ISO 50001. BEF indicator enables a reliable rating system model describing energetic efficiency of any IS&P and can be used by Utilities (for their DSM programs), NRCAN or U.S. Department of Energy - Energy-Star Certification for Plants Program replacing existent inefficient benchmarking practice. Canadian Standard Association is currently preparing Guidelines of benchmarking specific IS&P by using MMB concept.
With the introduction of energy management systems, an analysis of load profiles of manufacturing plants becomes increasingly important. Each manufacturing plant is characterized by a process and ...product specific power consumption. Often, electric drives are the main power consumers. In this paper methods for pattern recognition in load profiles of electric drives are presented on the example of a multiaxial lathe. A transfer of techniques used for speech recognition e.g. Hidden Markov Models, Fourier and Wavelet Transforms to manufacturing application is discussed. In combination with energy measurement systems, those techniques proved to be a good solution regarding energy efficiency calculations and derivation for key performance indicators. The investigated methods can also be applied to other process data with significant cost advantages, because a lot of process information can be extracted from a single sensor.