What does energy management mean?
Tense supply chains and geopolitical changes are bringing the issue of energy costs and thus energy consumption sharply into focus. Energy management is about systematically improving a company’s energy performance and saving costs!
Material costs, personnel costs and energy costs are currently the most important cost types for many companies. In times of tight markets, it is important to keep an eye on these and ideally to reduce them.
This is initially pure self-interest, which is supplemented by German and European legislation in the context of the Green Deal.
For example, all companies that no longer meet the definition of an SME (micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are defined in EU Recommendation 2003/361. According to this, a company is considered an SME if it has no more than 249 employees and generates annual sales of no more than €50 million or has a balance sheet total of no more than €43 million) must systematically address the issue of energy and resource consumption.
How companies can implement the requirements
Classically, this is done by implementing an environmental management system or conducting energy audits. The following main approaches have become established:
- ISO 50001: Especially for companies with a strong international orientation, as it is recognized worldwide. Ideal for companies with existing ISO 9001 certification, as it has an almost identical structure and can therefore be easily integrated.
- EC Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), since this is propagated by the legislative bodies as an alternative and also integrates sustainability aspects (see Environmental management).
- EN 16247-1: This standard describes the implementation of energy audits in organizations and is suitable for all companies that have no or only limited possibilities to sustainably improve their own energy consumption or where energy consumption does not play a decisive role. Indicators here are in particular: Service companies, rented premises, legal requirements without own possibility to influence.
What all standards and regulations have in common is that, as part of an energy assessment, the final energy sources are first defined and the total consumption is recorded on a site-specific basis. On this basis, optimization potentials are defined, evaluated and implemented. This can be done as part of projects (resulting from an energy audit) or a management system (ISO 50001, EMAS).
Since October 2022, it is particularly important to note that companies with a total energy consumption of more than 10GWh must carry out a profitability analysis of the measures in accordance with DIN EN 17463:2021 in order to be legally compliant. This significantly restricts the entrepreneurial freedom to make investment decisions.
For this reason, too, it is essential to create/adapt a legal and approval register that bundles legal and regulatory requirements for the company, derives obligations to act and systematically implements them in the form of measures.
How we support you
We will be happy to advise you on the best basis for your needs and offer you the following services, among others:
- Introduction / implementation of EM systems
- Implementation of internal and external system audits
- Performance of energy audits by qualified and accredited energy auditors
- Carrying out energy assessments
- Preparation and maintenance of legal and permit registers
- Performance of legal compliance audits
- Documentation of EM systems
- Reorganization & optimization
- Accompaniment of certification audits
- Execution of process analyses
- Assumption of external representative functions
It is particularly worth mentioning that we have our own legal department with several lawyers in order to implement the sensitive compliance topics in a qualified and professional manner. and professionally.
