Energy Management | By Haruna Inuwa
Globally, there is a continuous increase in energy demand and population growth moves up exponentially. A new report released by the International Energy Agency displays 5% electricity demand-increase. This is despite a collective, however, systemic efforts by the federal governments and international organizations in addressing the issue of energy crisis. Policies are being rolled out daily and based on the trends of economic events, energy generation from the non-fossil sources like Solar PV, Hydropower, Wind, etc., are, to some fraction, increasing steadily. In the same IEA report, energy generation from the non-fossil sources has been on significant increase by 8% in 2021. And this will grow the following year.
Meanwhile, in the African region, the energy crisis poses a great threat to the socio-economic development in many if not all the countries. For example, Nigeria—the most populous country with a giant economy in Africa, according to a data released by Bloomberg, only 45% of the country’s population are connected to the national grid. In what it is like a pity, in some part of the country, electricity lasts for only four hours in a day with other parts not even getting electricity throughout a day.
Accordingly, despite having an encouraging economy, the energy crisis is a setback to the country’s industrialization. For instance, from the consumable goods to cars, almost everything is being exported to the country on the daily basis. This is because, there industries fail to grow here due to energy crisis. And, Nigeria can only get this right with the right energy production and energy management policies.
First of all, what is energy management?
Energy management can be referred to as the best efficient way to minimize, monitor, and save energy in residential areas, public environments, etc. Energy management can be defined in terms of energy saving, which is a means of monitoring, controlling, and energy conservation in residential areas or organization. The importance of controlling and minimization of a facility’s energy consumption while carrying out daily activities cannot be overemphasized. This is because, by saving energy, we tend to fight lots of things at the same time. Like I said in the beginning of this piece, we will reduce risks, power outage, drive-down costs, and fight climate injustice by reducing carbon emission.
There are three (3) steps involve in effective energy management:
- Deployment of energy meters to monitor energy consumption and for data collection.
- Identifying energy saving opportunities by analyzing facilities within your building that waste energy and only allocate energy where necessary. Investigation could be carried out to identify facilities that consume lots of energy and replace with less energy-consuming facilities or by building insulation.
- Consistent monitoring of the energy meters and data analysis to observe if there is any bottleneck around any facility that might cause high energy consumption.
Energy management is so very necessary. Organizations are spending whole lots of money to operate at a high cost, which dictates revenue generation. And this among many reasons many experts are saying, with the right energy implementation, organization will operate at optimal rate and machines will be run in cost-effective way. What I am trying to say here is:
Why Energy Management?
All over the world, we need to save energy because:
- We cannot afford to waste energy as it costs to generate energy.
- To save the planet from climate injustice.
Having an energy crisis that is causing industrial backwardness is a thing of concern. The question here is: How do you use the little energy efficiently and manage it effectively? This question is very necessary looking at how electricity tariffs have an influence over state of production, services, and even determine how comfortably convenient we deliver our everyday business activities or work.
To ensure that you spend less and deliver your work efficiently, energy management is the controlling factor. The significance of energy management roots from the global actions of energy saving, which eventually influence the energy law of demand and supply that is prices, reducing carbon footprints, and sustainable implementation of policies. All these, among others, are some of the genuine reasons why energy management should have a resting power in any organization and residential areas at large.
In the absence of any energy management policy for monitor facilities energy consumption, organizations tend to spend more than what is being budgeted for in energy production. In fact, if care is not taken, an organization is likely to operate at a loss. Which means no business—going from a profit-making to nonprofit making organization. Furthermore, failure to put in place an effective energy management tool that will give an organizational a 360-view of energy consumption could cause a systematic incapability, continuous power outages, and concurrent power shortages.
Benefits of Energy Management
An energy management system will guide your organization in identifying ocean of opportunities to reduce reckless energy consumption, indicate energy consumption by facilities, and proffer solutions and rollout recommendation on how to best operate in the most efficient and cost-saving way. With energy management tools, your organization will be able to monitor, assess, check, and track energy consumption.
Energy management is indeed a gradual process and must-do as well. And you can only achieve a sustainable energy management by implementing energy management tools that will monitor and analyze your energy consumption data regularly. This will keep you updated on possible way to manage energy consumption and possibly cut down cost of maintenance and prevent operational breakdown of equipment due efficiency loss. Least you can do is to assign personnel that will monitor your data once per week or monthly to ensure that everything is working smoothly.
The Way Forward for Nigerian Industries
In Nigeria, even with the unsatisfactory power supply, our economy is doing relatively well but many organizations can save more costs and risks significantly with the right approach to energy management. Consequently, this will offer a rebirth of industrialization in Nigeria and address the issue of unemployment.
What We do at Max-Migold
Our company is a big player in the facilities management industry and has provided the best energy management services to multinationals and national organizations. From our Lagos offices, we provide world-class solutions for your building portfolio to ensure you achieve profit targets.
Our energy management service is the best you can find out there. At Max-Migold, we are committed to maximizing your potential and our number one priority is to help organization to scale-up revenue through effective energy management.
About Author
Haruna Inuwa is the Chief Operating Officer at Max-Migold, he can be reached at: haruna.inuwa@maxmigold.com