Setting up an energy metering plan for an industrial company

Against a backdrop of volatility and a structural rise in energy prices, the energy bill accounts for between 5% and 30% of production costs for many industrial companies. This share has become a major strategic driver of competitiveness, on par with productivity and raw material management.

However, you can only improve what you measure. The energy metering plan is the essential foundation of any consumption management initiative: it enables a shift from a general and approximate understanding of the energy bill – provided by the utility’s billing meters – to a detailed, distributed, and actionable view of actual consumption by location, process, and utility.

A structured energy metering plan is the first building block of an energy management system (EMS) compliant with the ISO 50001 standard. It enables you to:

• measure to understand the actual energy flows at the site;

• understand these flows to identify opportunities for savings and areas of inefficiency;

• take action to reduce costs and continuously improve performance.

This guide is intended for energy managers, production engineers, maintenance managers, and executives of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) seeking to implement a rigorous approach to improving energy performance. It will guide them from the initial assessment to the intelligent use of energy data, incorporating Industry 4.0 tools.