Skills development at executive level pays rich dividends

Since its inception in 1981, the Certified Energy Manager (CEM) credential has become widely accepted and used as a measure of professional accomplishment within the energy management field. The following case study from engineering, procurement, project and construction management firm Hatch shows the benefits.

Hatch boasts four such professionals locally who utilise their expertise across the company’s three main business units: mining and minerals processing, energy,
and infrastructure.

Hatch CEM Marnus Meyer points out that it is likely to become a prerequisite that certain minimum energy efficiency requirements for any major project’s design will have to be met before such a capital expansion project is given the sign-off to receive energy from state utility, Eskom.

“Before energising an electrical supply, Eskom wants to see that the engineer has thought about energy efficiency in the plant design. The state utility will only approve the electricity supply contract once the design has been signed off by a CEM or professional engineer, demonstrating that proper energy efficiency principles have been applied to the design,” he explains.

Hatch is in the process of developing its own in-house verification system for gauging energy efficiency. This process carries out an energy efficiency audit, which investigates and analyses the plant design.

This results in an overall percentage for a certain range of criteria, for example: a 67% contribution toward making the plant energy efficient.

Meyer says that if the rating falls below 50%, the design is not energy efficient. It is at this point that Hatch will make recommendations toward increasing the design’s energy efficiency.

Various energy efficiency initiatives have been used as standard for some time and will continue long into the future, such as ensuring that a building is well insulated and properly sealed.

Meyer, however, says that energy efficiency goes so much further than this. There are many other aspects in the design that are far more important and that contribute to wastage if not properly engineered.

“The benefit of using a CEM is that we can identify energy-saving opportunities, such as recovering heat from furnaces and harnessing free cooling on chillers, cooling towers, boilers and turbines,” he says.

“For example, by utilising the excess heat coming off the shell of a furnace, one could run a non-electric chiller plant. This could provide a plant with air conditioning for offices and sub-stations, switch rooms and UPS [uninterruptible power supply] rooms.

“Some of these trade-off studies show that the capital investment is paid off within a short period; and for the rest of the life of the plant, the client receives very low cost refrigeration,” explains Meyer.

The CEM’s role is most beneficial in the initial design stages of the plant. “Questions that we would ask during this stage include: What energy sources are available? Is there any possibility of co-generation? What is the maintainability of the plant in terms of layout? Could the operability of the plant result in downtime?

These are all questions that assist CEMs in creating a plant that is ‘energy smart’,“ says Meyer.

Involvement in the initial stages of designing a plant allows CEMs to make suggestions with regard to the actual location of the plant, as certain areas may be cheaper in terms of energy. For example, if a plant were located close to a gas line, it could tap into a cheaper source of energy for heating and certain electrical generation applications.

Meyer notes the cost- and energy-saving afforded to a client on the recently completed project in Madagascar. Hatch’s design of the plant helped to eliminate a large number of conveyor belt systems that were previously part of the standard design.

He says that the savings to the client not only include the supply and installation cost of the actual conveyors but also the electrical and operational maintenance savings. The savings in terms of energy and cost over the life span of the plant are significant.

The CEM certification can be obtained across most engineering disciplines, but professionals can only become eligible for this certification after demonstrating expertise in several areas ranging from standards, air quality, energy audits, lighting, procurement and even financing.

It has been reported that by attaining the CEM accreditation, one would be joining a global group of approximately 10 000 professionals serving industry, business and government throughout South Africa and in 22 countries abroad, Meyer concludes.

Kelly Farthing