Over the past six years, since leaving the nine to five – well, eight to seven – business world and working for myself, I have written a number of articles and run many sessions about how to plan and manage a route to a low carbon future. I have an understanding of everything from climate change policies to legislation, from data analysis to building thermal behaviour, from action planning to monitoring and reporting as a basic requirement – and my experiences as both a poacher and a gamekeeper has served me well.

In all my articles and presentations I contend that any plan is only as good as the data collected and the systems used to analyse it. This data then needs to be used to prioritise actions.

People are an essential factor in all action plans, but data and commonsense rule ok!

The collection of utilities data has evolved from the daily/ weekly manual reading of meters by on-site operatives using notebooks and pencils, to real-time automated data collection over wireless connections; data being viewed anywhere in the world. The introduction of half-hourly metering and smart meters with two-way communications capability has further improved our ability to see, to analyse, to check and to act.  In the data analysis stage, the calculator and excel spreadsheets have now mostly been discarded – replaced by easy-to-use, proprietary computer programmes customised to individual needs.

Why collect data?

We need good information to pay bills correctly; to have information that can guide formation and operation of a continuous improvement programme; to report on achievements and failings – and to procure effectively. In simple terms, a system chain is needed that feeds into one database and spans the following key areas:

For a joined-up system that supports a robust plan the requirements in all the ‘boxes’ must be defined clearly, and providers sourced to deliver either an end-to-end service or selected elements of it.  In the latter case, the interfaces and the transport and updating of data are potential weak links that often are not recognised fully enough at the specification stage.

Key area definitions

• ‘Paying’: it means what it says on the tin, but systems can vary enormously in their robustness. The finance and energy manager need to be sure that all the correct checks have been carried out: is it my bill? Is it for the right meter? Is it for the right period? Does it look right? Are all the elements correct? And so on. Then, the key data needs to be stored correctly and the database updated as bills are reconciled, queried and [endlessly] changed.  It is not unheard of for an Accounts Payable department to correct financial data but not adjust non financial values, such as usage information, when bills are ‘re-presented’ by the Supplier.

• ‘Using’: is a key ‘box’ covering many aspects, from analysis to monitoring and targeting and project tracking – requiring not just utilities data but temperatures, production figures, area served, etc. in order to track and show real movement, trends and deviation from plans. Any support system must be able to collect/ accept /store data, be capable of comparing and normalising performance against targets and benchmarks, and also allow easy yet in-depth analysis of what it all means

• ‘Reporting’: is now a mandatory requirement for some, and in any case best practice dictates that companies and organisations should always show their stakeholders their environmental performance in a factual way; not just wonderful words, but wonderful figures, tables and graphs, too. Correct inputs are vital, but so too are clear outputs and any system must allow a range of ‘viewers’ to see and interrogate.

Improve with confidence

Over my working life as an engineer, and especially in the past six years as a consultant, I’ve worked closely with many finance teams and I’m afraid to say that any data provided to them by anyone in the energy business – whether external or internal – is often viewed with great suspicion: guilty ‘til proven innocent.  Therefore, on occasion, there is a reticence to accept figures presented in reports or in energy reduction scheme proposals: savings represent an absence of use … how on earth do you measure that … accurately?

Well, some finance teams are now a much happier bunch since all the best energy management practitioners have introduced them to IPMVP, the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol. Make sure your system provider and finance teams are IPMVP savvy, because this has brought a real robustness to measuring energy savings and, not surprisingly, it is now the most widely used and recognised M&V protocol in the world. Simply put an M&V model in place at the start of a project creates a baseline so that “changes”, the detailed devils that fuel suspicion, can be accounted for accurately – making the use of simple ‘before and after’ comparisons satisfies even an Accountant’s doubtful gaze.

In summary

Selection of the correct support system and the right provider can mean energy / carbon reduction is just an easy matter of making well-informed, commonsense decisions.

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