Conduct a detailed energy audit of the sort building

What is going on

The Eastern Creek sort building uses about 60 percent of the site's electricity through conveyors, optical sorters, balers, compressors and high bay lighting. Two projects are proposed: variable speed drives on the main conveyors and rooftop solar. Fiona Ashcroft wants a detailed energy audit under the procedure before committing capital. Harpreet Gill has twelve months of interval data, the equipment register with motor ratings and operating hours, and the electricity invoices. Sub-metering exists on the compressors only. The building runs two shifts, six days, and the out of hours base load has never been measured. The management review on 22 September wants the ranked opportunities and a business case for the drives project.

Your brief

Conduct the audit to the detailed level: assemble and check the data, walk the building during operation and after hours, build an energy balance that reconciles to the invoices, quantify and rank the opportunities with emissions avoided, and complete the business case template for the variable speed drive project.

Work through it

You do not need to do it all. Doing a few of these will show you what the work is like. Your ticks and notes stay on this device.

• Read the site energy audit procedure and the site energy and emissions management plan and record the audit level, boundary and period in an audit plan.
• Assemble the interval data, invoices and equipment register in the audit workbook with a source recorded for every figure, and list the data gaps.
• Walk the sort building with Deshan Weerasinghe during operation and record every significant energy using item with rating, operating hours and control method.
• Arrange an after hours walk or use the interval data to measure the base load and identify what is running when the lines are stopped.
• Build the energy balance allocating use to conveyors, sorters, balers, compressors, lighting and base load, and reconcile it to the invoices within the tolerance for the audit level.
• Quantify at least five opportunities for energy, cost and emissions saved, capital cost and payback, using the current emission factors, and rank them.
• Complete the sustainability business case template for the variable speed drive project with three options including do nothing, and enter the accepted opportunities in the improvement register.
• Prepare a short audit report for the management review with the balance, the ranked list, the assumptions and the monitoring measures that will verify savings.

What someone in this role would produce

• Audit plan and audit workbook with sources
• Energy balance reconciled to invoices
• Ranked opportunity list with emissions avoided
• Completed business case for the variable speed drive project
• Audit report for management review