Strategic energy management (SEM) is a general term for a structured, long-term energy use management plan to make organizational changes resulting in continual improvements in energy performance. It’s a long-term approach to energy efficiency that includes setting goals, tracking progress, and reporting results.
While this approach to managing energy performance is at the core of every SEM plan, the details of SEM vary by state and implementation consultant. For example, in California, SEM started as part of the industry energy efficiency program portfolio. Today, it is offered as three separate 2-year cycles, with program administrators and implementers following the state’s SEM Design Guide.
Example of a SEM resource: Energy Star’s Guidelines for Energy Management
Implementing Strategic Energy Management
Different companies employ different philosophies when it comes to managing the energy they use to service their needs. Some may prioritize energy reduction, yet others will focus on greenhouse gas reductions from their energy use; others might have a different strategy to minimize their energy use during peak periods. SEM is a valuable opportunity for organizations to fundamentally address their energy needs by understanding and documenting their systems and processes while implementing energy management activities.
Working with a SEM Coach
When a customer engages with SEM services, a SEM coach is assigned to the organization. A SEM coach delivers a progression of educational modules and site-specific activities whose elements build upon each other. The objective of engagement is to develop the customer’s understanding, skills, and capabilities relative to energy while consistently delivering energy savings.
These activities will eventually transition into business practices, taking the form of an Energy Management System (EnMS). Ultimately, the goal is to help the customer develop a systematic approach to managing energy while also ensuring that the customer can manage the system they have developed and continue saving energy long after the program has ended.
Documenting Valuable Operational Knowledge
Typically when starting SEM, one of the first challenges for organizations is to define what is already happening in their energy systems.
An individual operator, operating a building or a wastewater treatment plant in a certain way, will have deep experience within their operational parameters and systems. However, that information is frequently stored only with the individual operator or department. Without detailed documentation, an organization is not only vulnerable to disruptions if an operator leaves their role, but is also missing a clear picture of what is happening within operations to cause certain results.
Fully embodying the aphorism, “you cannot manage what you do not understand”, SEM makes it a top priority to properly and thoroughly document operations. This ensures complete transparency of operations to all stakeholders within the organization. This effort to document operations can empower all employees within the organization up and down the chain, automating processes that allow them to focus on their core job responsibilities.
Defining Systems and Gathering Data
Energy management requires a lot of data to first fully characterize the operation of the system and then to define the parameters of the system the customer is trying to improve.
For example, with a building HVAC system, characterizing the operation may require reviewing data points such as cooling and heating activities, what the system is doing when the building is unoccupied, evaluating unforeseen events, and how equipment is operating.
While collecting data may take resources and time, the success of the entire energy management project depends on first developing an accurate understanding of how the system works. With a robust picture of operations, the SEM coach and the customer are then prepared to optimize across the entire process.
Gathering data also becomes important as customers evaluate and verify the impact of various energy management strategies that are implemented. Data collection and verification is a planned activity and the approach is documented in a measurement and verification plan.
Measurement and Verification (M&V) is the process of establishing a game plan to collect data, analyzing the collected data, and verifying performance. As a customer implements a robust EnMS, M&V ensures that the energy management strategy is achieving its stated objectives.
Through M&V, the customer can develop a deeper understanding of the relationships between energy uses, operations, and energy consumption. The data provides information for the customer to understand energy and demand savings, and if equipped, data for any regulatory reporting purposes.
Within SEM, the goal is to have the customer lead most or all of the M&V process, as part of EnMS development.
Analyzing Demand and Systems
Under the SEM approach, managing energy isn’t just about energy efficiency alone. It also considers energy consumption reduction, energy demand reduction, time of use management, and carbon footprint related to energy consumption.
The goal of SEM is true integrated demand side management (IDSM), which analyzes the demand the system is serving, as well as characterizing what the system is doing. The SEM process analyzes the energy consumption, energy uses, and relevant variables of the system using the documentation created and data gathered. After analyzing whether the two sides are well-matched, a customer can work with the SEM coach to start outlining pathways and commitments for future demand-side activities.
Empowering Customer to Implement Activities
Implementing opportunities identified by SEM is a collaborative process, pulling from the SEM coach’s recommendations but led by various stakeholders on the customer’s side. The job of the SEM coach is to lead the customer through the “treasure hunt” of establishing an EnMS to demonstrate how it is done. Then, the coach gradually hands off the process to the customer and monitors for continued progress. In this part of the program, the updated documentation about systems is particularly valuable.
Ultimately, SEM is a method to educate and provide the necessary tools to the customer so that
they are actively engaged in IDSM activities. These energy management practices should be built into business operations as business practices. A customer is able to find practical ways to reduce their energy consumption, energy cost, and energy-related GHG emissions, and can continue following the pathway created by the SEM process.fundamentally address their energy needs by understanding and documenting their systems.
ISO 50001
The most common standard for SEM is ISO 50001, developed by the International Standards Organization. The ISO 50001 standard outlines best practices in energy management and how an organization can develop and integrate an EnMS into overall business practices.
ISO 50001 offers a standardized and repeatable process to implement SEM in commercial, industrial, and public sectors, a method to create an organizational culture for SEM, and an approach for providing specific direction to every level of the energy group with a defined mission, purpose, and goals.
Some organizations choose to pursue a ISO 50001 certification, and other organizations may adopt the standard for the benefits in quality and environmental management. In 2017, in recognition of the importance of SEM and ISO 50001, the Department of Energy (DOE) developed a step-by-step method to become a self-certified ISO 50001 company called 50001 Ready Navigator, shown below.
The DOE’s step-by-step method to become a self-certified ISO 50001 company, known as 50001 Ready Navigator
Lincus as a SEM Partner
Lincus’ team of skilled consultants, engineers, and analysts have a mix of expertise uncommon in the energy industry – we are highly-proficient in energy and process simulation and design of energy-efficiency programs with extensive hands-on experience in energy-engineering-based mechanical construction projects.
As an experienced energy efficiency consultant, Lincus is able to develop optimization pathways that are eligible under energy efficiency programs, ensuring that a customer is pursuing optimization scenarios that are feasible, eligible, and able to be implemented. Lincus also utilizes our skills and experience to assist customers on becoming ISO 50001 self-certified by DOE.
SEM provides a structured way of discovering and implementing energy efficiency measures, and we want to help you become optimally energy efficient. Contact us for solutions and more information on energy efficiency and strategic energy management.