It’s clear that energy market volatility is putting pressure on organisations’ decarbonisation plans. Businesses clearly need to pursue net zero, but they need to keep their costs under control more than ever before. Having access to comprehensive, real-time energy data can make a real difference – particularly for organisations who are trying to position themselves as a supplier of choice within a supply chain.
As an energy efficiency engineering consulting firm, Renteknik Group Inc. is committed to helping businesses solve their energy-related problems. As a partner of Centrica Business Solutions, they use our Panoramic PowerTM technology to help organisations effectively and holistically manage consumption, reduce power waste, improve operational efficiency, lower energy costs, and prevent costly downtime.
We interviewed Darren Cooper, President of Renteknik, about the impact that energy market volatility is having on business’s net zero plans; and how energy data is becoming a critical component for organisations choosing their suppliers of choice.
It varies significantly depending on geographical region. We’re seeing businesses in Europe, for example, experience massive, unexpected increases in energy cost. Some organisations are seeing their energy bills double. At the same time, they’re seeing other costs increase too. Rising fuel prices is increasing the cost of transportation; while shipping prices are also increasing due to shortages of containers, labour, and more.
In North America, we haven’t seen energy prices rise to the same extent as in Europe, but we’re definitely seeing the impact of rising fuel costs. Fuel for vehicles has always been relatively cheap in North America, and transportation distances tend to be much greater than they typically are within Europe. The fairly substantial price increases that we’ve recently seen in fuel cost is having a big bearing on businesses ability to operate.
All of this is impacting net zero plans, because businesses were anticipating a certain amount of profit for a certain amount of investment, and they had built their investment plans around that scenario. But now their profits are unlikely to be what they had expected, due to rising costs. There’s a big risk that this volatility could slow down some of the decarbonisation plans of businesses, if they don’t look at other ways to fund it.
Most organisations have come to the realisation - or the acceptance - that they cannot avoid net zero. So, there is now an active discussion about how we get roadmaps in place for reaching that target within a set period of time. Some organisations are relatively aggressive in what they’re trying to do. Others are a lot more conservative. But there’s definitely a lot less pushback or disinterest compared to a few years ago.
We’ve seen that transpose into a need for data. Many organisations want – and need – to understand how they’re currently using energy. If something doesn’t need to be turned on, turn it off. That’s one of the very simple pieces that all organisations can do. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about an office, a hospital or a manufacturing facility – there’s always a ton of things that are unnecessarily operating. It can be really shocking when you see the data. But often, it’s either a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’; or nobody has realised just how much energy that a particular system is consuming.
There’s definitely a misunderstanding between the energy consumption of something when it’s turned off, versus when it’s idling, versus when it’s in operation. In a factory for example, there’s often a misconception that machines which are waiting for raw materials to come in can’t possibly be using very much energy. Then you start to get data off that equipment, and you discover that it’s still using two-thirds of the energy it would be using if it were operating, because there are still all sorts of motors, pumps and heaters that are buzzing away in the background, using very large amounts of energy.
Understanding the impact of energy waste is going to be a big factor in organisations’ decarbonisation journey.
When we speak with businesses, we typically start by understanding what type of data that particular organisation needs in order to affect change or build a roadmap for the future.
The simple place to start is by reviewing what data they already have access to. Often, they will have a utility bill that they receive a month in arrears. Some organisations might be slightly more enhanced and have some visibility into full site utility data in real-time – but that might be a very big bucket, that’s hard to divide up and turn into actionable intelligence.
We can then look for ways to access the data they need to move forwards. We’ve been seeing a significant shift into device-level metering, in particular - Panoramic Power as a technology provides very cost-effective way of doing this. In a lot of instances now, we’re actually having a reverse discussion with customers. Instead of metering their main distribution systems, we pick a certain element of their operations, and we focus on that – metering at a very deep level, within a very specific kind of system. This means working in the opposite direction to what would have traditionally been seen as a means of collecting data, but it gives them truly actionable intelligence that can drive real change in their organisation.
We’re in a situation where many larger organisations are pushing the net zero issue downhill and asking their supply chain to demonstrate how they’re reducing carbon in the materials that are being supplied to them. Larger organisations are increasingly asking their suppliers to take accountability for the carbon footprint that’s associated with their purchases. Suppliers who have a clear grasp on their carbon footprint are in a strong position to become a vendor of choice – and data is the first step to achieving that.
From an environmental perspective, the pressure that these large organisations are putting on their suppliers is a positive thing, because it’s driving change. But on the flip side, some of these suppliers are relatively small, family-run businesses and operate on a fairly lean basis. They don’t necessarily have a lot of internal resources or expertise to fully understand their carbon footprint, let alone implement an effective net zero plan.
There’s definitely a growing need to support these types of organisations. That’s where an organisation like Renteknik can come in. A lot of organisations recognise that in order to have the right internal discussions around decarbonisation, they need to substantiate their thinking with real information. So, again, access to data is critical.
In addition to data, there are all sorts of incentive programmes – like grants and tax credits – available in countries around the world to support the transition to net zero. But many smaller organisations don’t even know that these exist, and they’re not necessarily on the radar of the body that’s administering it. Even where smaller businesses are aware of certain incentives, the administration that’s involved in accessing them can be too significant for them. Better awareness and access to funding amongst small businesses would really help to accelerate our global move to net zero.
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