HKSQ Seminar on Strategic Energy Management (ISO 50001)

Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ), SEEM Dept., CityU, HKIE – MID, TQM and BSI co-organized the seminar named “Strategic Energy Management” on 14th Aug 2015. The Government has announced a new target for all government buildings to achieve a 5% saving in electricity consumption under comparable operating conditions in the coming five year in the 2015 Policy Address. This seminar aimed to share the strategic management approach for conserving energy and reducing cost through facilities operations and energy management leaders. Before the seminar, we took a photo with all guest speakers and organizers.
(Left: Dr. Ken Yau (CityU, HKSQ), Dr. KS Chin (CityU, HKSQ), Mr. Peter Fung (HKSQ), Mr. TO Lee (WSD), Dr. Aaron Tong (HKIE, TQM), Mr. Vincent Cheng (TQM, HKSQ), Mr. Stephen Yu (BSI) and I (HKSQ))

In the beginning, Dr. Aaron Tong (Former Chairman, HKSQ & HKIE-MIE; Managing Director of TQM) presented the appreciation certificates to our guest speakers and took a group photo.
(Left: Dr. Patricia Cheung, Mr. TO Lee, Dr. Aaron Tong, Mr. Vincent Cheng and Mr. Stephen Yu)

The first speaker was Ir. Dr. Aaron Tong (Managing Director & Principal Consultant, TQM) and his presentation topic was “Highlighted on HK Energy Saving Initiatives”. Dr. Tong reviewed the rising of energy cost and climate change. He said that both consumers and citizens were increasingly environmentally conscious. Then Government formulated the Buildings Energy Efficiency Ordinance (Cap. 610) to promote energy efficiency. So that implementation of Energy Audit and Energy Management would be a trend.

Then Dr. Aaron Tong introduced the Cap 176 in Policy Address that Government set a new target of achieving a 5% saving in electricity consumption for government buildings and energy audits would be conducted for major government buildings, as well as, fostering a low-carbon and livable built environment so as to reduce Hong Kong’s overall electricity demand. Three steps to reduce energy consumption were: i) Energy Audit on EnMS, ii) Implementing Solution of Energy Saving and iii) Save Energy, Save Cost.

The second speaker was Mr. TO Lee (Chief Engineer, Water Supplies Department, HKSAR) and his topic entitled “Experience Sharing: Energy Management System (EnMS) in Water Supplies Department”. Firstly, Mr. Lee introduced two key objectives of WSD below:
i) To align WSD’s energy management system with the international best practices.
ii) To formalize and rationalize our existing energy management strategies and practices to further improve our energy efficiency, save energy cost and reduce carbon emission.

Then Mr. Lee introduced their energy management jour to us since 1998 because they were top 3 electricity consumer in Hong Kong and the highest among government departments (In 2013/14, about 25% of the total consumption of HKSARG). The following chart demonstrated the top usage of energy was related to water pumping (upto ~91%).

Before the ISO 50001 implementation, they formed Energy Management Committee (EMC) in 1998 and then transferred to Energy and Emission Management Committee (EEMC) in 2008. Last year, they achieved ISO 50001 certification. Their EnMS structure was shown in the following diagram.

After the analysis the energy usage distribution, Mr. Lee initiated several energy saving measures.
i) Promotion of water conservation in the community
ii) Timely maintenance and replacement of M&E equipment
iii) Life-cycle costing methodology for planning, design and procurement
iv) Close monitoring of plant conditions and energy performance
v) Use of energy efficient M&E equipment
vi) Energy auditing for major assets and green housekeeping offices and installations
So far, WSD achieve to save 13.2% per unit electricity consumption and 7.0% per capita electricity consumption.

Some Energy Performance Indicators, Energy Baseline and Energy Target were discussed. Mr. Lee said the baseline development was referred to the past ten years and selected the worse performance year as baseline. Finally, he shared three successful factors included “Senior Management Commitment”, “Energy Data Collection and Analysis” and “Making Energy Saving a Culture”. At the end, he quoted from anonymous author statement as conclusion that “Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try”.

The third speaker was Mr. Vincent Cheng (Consultant, TQM Consultants Co., Ltd.) and his presentation named “Setting up an Effective Energy Management System”. In the beginning, Mr. Vincent Cheng briefed us how to start EnMS and he suggested to seek top management commitment. There were several factors attracting top management such as reduction of carbon emission, good corporate citizen, improving corporate image, but the most important was saving money.

Then Vincent briefed to build a team included team leader and members. One new concept introduced was “Energy Warden”. The concept was transferred from Fire Warden who is a person employed to prevent or extinguish fires. Therefore, Energy Warden is a person employed to prevent wasting the energy (save energy).

In order to establish EnMS, Energy Policy should be defined first. The second thing was review legal and other requirements. Some energy related legislations in HKSAR were shown below:

- Cap 610 – Building Energy Efficiency Ordinance
- EMSD Code of Practice for Energy Efficiency (2005 Edition and 2007 Edition)
- Cap 598 – Energy Efficiency (Labelling of Products) Ordinance
- Cap 51 – Gas Safety Ordinance
- Cap 311L – Air Pollution Control (Motor Vehicle Fuel) Regulation
- Cap 311Y – Air Pollution Control (Marine Light Fuel) Regulation
- Technical Circular on Green Government Building (DevB TC 2/2015, EB 3/2015)

The most important part of ISO 50001 was Energy Review. It needed to identify energy sources (e.g. electricity, towngas, diesel, gasoline, etc.) and use (e.g. Lighting, Air Con, HVAC, etc.) and then formed the Energy Baseline. After review, we needed to identify the Significant Energy Use (SEU) included facilities, equipment, systems processes, personnel to be affected, as well as relevant variables (e.g. weather) and current energy performance related to SEUs. The following diagram demonstrated some examples of Energy Performance Indicators (EnPIs).

Vincent also showed some examples of Energy Objectives and Targets that Objectives could be qualitative but Targets should be quantitative. At the end, Vincent concluded that “Climate change is the biggest challenge to human being. Let’s do something for our next generations rather than leaving a broken earth for them to heal.”

The last speaker was Ir. Stephen Yu (Client Manager cum Compliance & Risk Manager, BSI) and his presentation topic was “Sharing the ISO 50001 Certification Process”. Firstly, he quoted the humanity’s top ten problems for next 50 years in which Energy was ranked number ONE. (Sequence: Energy, Water, Food, Environment, Poverty, Terrorism & War, Disease, Education, Democracy, and Population)

The summary of BS ISO 50001 EnMS and its Model were briefed and showed in the following diagram.

Then Stephen shared some technical challenges he met before such as Chillers running at low efficiency, procurement for energy policy insufficient implemented, method of verification of energy objectives & target unclear, etc. A structured EnMS approach under PDCA could continual improve energy performance and built the company culture on energy management. Finally, he summarized that certification of ISO 50001 enabled these organizations to demonstrate their commitment to energy management best practice.

Q&A Session

Reference:
HKSQ - www.hksq.org
SEEM, CityU – http://www.cityu.edu.hk/seem/
HKIE-MI Division – http://mi.hkie.org.hk/

ISO 50001 related seminars:
20140224: HKCTC Seminar on ISO 50001 EnMS and Certification - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2014/02/hkctc-seminar-on-iso-50001-enms-and.html
20130808: HKQAA Seminar on Application of ISO 50001 in Construction Projects - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2013/08/hkqaa-seminar-on-application-of-iso.html
20120709: ISO 50001 Energy Management System (EnMS) Awareness Training - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2012/07/iso-50001-energy-management-system-enms.html
20120811: HKQAA Seminar - Laterest Developments in Energy Efficiency Enhancement - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2012/08/hkqaa-seminar-laterest-developments-in.html
20120413: Seminar on Low Carbon Trends in Hong Kong Construction Industry - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2012/04/seminar-on-low-carbon-trends-in-hong.html
20101114: Introduction of Upcoming Energy Management System Development - http://qualityalchemist.blogspot.hk/2010/11/introduction-of-upcoming-energy.html