Raising Energy Efficiency Standards for Industry
From the Summer 2009 issue of Energy Matters
Excerpted with permission from the Alliance to Save Energy™ Web site
The U.S. industrial sector is responsible for one-third of the energy consumed in the U.S. annually, and accounts for 30% of greenhouse gas emissions. The potential for efficiency improvement is significant, yet the savings opportunities are not being pursued for a variety of reasons, which are more institutional rather than technological.
But all that is changing. U.S. manufacturers will soon have several new and interesting voluntary standards to aid them in the pursuit of facility energy savings. These standards will be valuable tools for organizations looking to control energy costs, address carbon emissions, or demonstrate corporate social responsibility. This article profiles the new industry standards slated for release and use in the coming years.
System Assessment Standards
Developing System Assessment Standards
In August 2008, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) issued four Draft Standards for Trial Use involving the assessment of energy efficiency in process heating, pumping, steam, and compressed air systems. ASME accepted comments on these standards until January 2009.
"Based on the feedback that we received, the drafts have been revised," said Ryan Crane of ASME. "We are now approaching the final stage to approve the standards, and I am anticipating that they will be ANSI-approved by October 2009 and published by November 2009."
Read ASME's article on the standards to learn more.
To aid industry in identifying opportunities for saving energy, industry and government have teamed up to develop a set of voluntary standards for the assessment of specific industrial energy-consuming systems. Known as Superior Energy Performance, the partnership includes U.S. industry; the U.S. Department of Energy Industrial Technologies Program's Save Energy Now Initiative; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ENERGY STAR® for Industry program; the U.S. Department of Commerce's Manufacturing Extension Partnership; American National Standards Institute (ANSI); and Texas Industries of the Future.
The system assessment standards will help provide a framework that industrial organizations can use for conducting assessments of their primary energy-consuming systems. The idea is that this can be accomplished through the establishment of minimum requirements and guidance on organizing and conducting the assessment, collecting data, and reporting results.
Four standards have been developed and are currently being pilot-tested; the final standards will be accredited by the ANSI, the U.S. accreditor of voluntary consensus standards. These standards are set to be released for use in late 2009 by the ASME, and relate to the energy assessment of industrial compressed air systems, process heating systems, pumping systems, and steam systems.
By relying on specific areas for energy assessment, these standards will allow organizations to more easily identify and quantify targeted opportunities for economical energy efficiency improvements.
ANSI/MSE 2000-2008—A Management System for Energy
Developed by Georgia Institute of Technology's Enterprise Innovation Institute in 2000, A Management System for Energy (ANSI/MSE 2000-2008) is an accepted American National Standard. The current version is now ANSI/MSE 2000-2008, which was approved by ANSI in February 2009.
This standard offers a framework that can be used by any organization to bring energy management into the corporate organizational structure and culture. It is a relatively easy process because this standard is designed to be compatible with current management system standards such as International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001 (quality management) and ISO 14001 (environmental management). Moreover, implementation of ANSI/MSE 2000-2008 will alleviate some of the typical issues that prevent energy projects from being realized, such as energy audit findings and recommendations that sit on the shelf and are never considered by management.
ANSI/MSE 2000-2008 is not a prescriptive approach to identifying or implementing energy savings projects, nor does it require the use of specific technologies. It does, however, provide a good complement to the system assessment standards discussed in this article, which are useful tools for identifying opportunities in specific systems, such as steam systems. These are more likely to be effective when paired with a management system such as ANSI/MSE 2000-2008, which advances best management practices—most closely identified with the Plan-Do-Check-Act model—to result in continual improvement and sustained energy savings.
Implementation of ANSI/MSE 2000-2008 allows organizations to proactively manage their energy resources, providing the ability for long-term control of energy consumption and costs. For example, ANSI/MSE 2000-2008 has been implemented at C&A Floorcoverings, a manufacturer of carpets and floorcoverings with several plants in Georgia. Through the implementation of the standard, the company's management established a formal energy policy, set energy goals and targets, and now holds regular management reviews to assess the energy performance of their facilities. Also, the company is finding measurable decreases in environmental impacts and actively considering sustainable energy sources.
ISO Management System Standard for Energy
Is there an energy management system that is both applicable to any industry and effective in any country? Not quite yet, but one is in the works and it's called the ISO Management System Standard for Energy (ISO 50001). The standard is being developed through a project committee consisting of 35 participating countries and five observing countries. The United States (through ANSI) and Brazil are Secretariats for the committee, which had its first meeting in September 2008, and is targeting 2011 for a published standard.
ISO 50001 is intended to provide organizations and companies with a recognized framework for integrating energy efficiency into their management practices. This is accomplished by bringing the management of energy into the corporate organizational structure and culture of an organization, which is why ISO 50001 is being written to be compatible with current management system standards such as ISO 9001 (quality management) and ISO 14001 (environmental management)—standards that are widely used throughout the world.
The United States has a large and active Technical Advisory Group working with ANSI to ensure that the final product will be of true value to U.S.-based organizations. The existing ANSI/MSE 2000-2008 provides an excellent model for the ISO standard, and the United States would like to see most aspects of MSE 2000-2008 carried forward into ISO 50001.
The ISO project committee has a challenging task, however, since several of the other participating countries (Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Thailand and Korea) also have existing national energy management standards, and the European Union has developed a regional energy management standard. In addition, similar standards are under development in China, Spain and Brazil. To facilitate progress, the United States created a comparison of the various national standards, and then worked with China's Standardization Administration and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization to prepare a framework for action for use by the project committee. This document is helping to keep the development of ISO 50001 on track.
To learn more about ISO 50001, read the Ask an Energy Expert column in this issue.
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