What is Strategic Energy Management?
Strategic Energy Management (SEM) is a continuous process of managing how your business uses energy, ensuring you are on the path to reducing your energy consumption year over year. SEM programs across the country typically see an average annual energy consumption reduction of 3-5%.
Customers who understand the importance of establishing a continuous improvement process can see significant benefits by engaging in SEM. If you consume over 5 million kwh annually and are currently engaged in an ISO initiative (9000/14000) or have a sustainability commitment, SEM is for you.
Our SEM coaches will work with your team to guide your business through this journey, identifying low/no-cost wins and establishing a list of potential capital projects. In addition to your senior leadership commitment, our SEM coaches provide support to your energy champions who make a modest commitment over the 3-year engagement.
What does my business gain from SEM?
- Technical and coaching support to enhance your energy management process.
- Incentives for qualifying capital projects and low/no-cost measures.
- Extends your established process management thinking to continuous energy management.
- Ensures continuous reductions toward your carbon metrics.
- Energy modeling support to find energy savings for implemented measures compared to your baseline.
- Includes support for development of energy policies, investment strategies, purchasing policies, energy management information systems (EMIS), and employee behaviors toward energy efficiency
- 100% of funding for coaching support through the SEM engagement.
Getting Started
To begin this effort, your Energize Connecticut Sponsor will pre-qualify your business to participate in either a cohort engagement (6-8 customers participating together) or an individual engagement. You will be provided with a non-binding Letter of Intent that confirms commitment by your Energy Champion and your senior leadership team to participate in the SEM process.
A Letter of Intent clarifies what is required from participating customers and the expected deliverables from Eversource or Avangrid through the SEM engagement.
SEM coaches will work collaboratively with customers to identify low and no cost efficiency opportunities including generating a register of potential capital projects. Additionally, a baseline energy model, normalized for relevant drivers of energy use such as production and weather, will be developed to measure against for calculating energy savings going forward.
Planning and prioritizing identified opportunities is a key tenet of SEM. Implementation of low and no cost measures, typically resulting from operations, maintenance, behavior, or setpoint changes, will be at the top of the list. SEM coaches will also work with customers to map out current energy management processes and collaborate on the enhancement of those processes while providing the necessary training to ensure implementation of the enhancements.
The baseline model will be kept accurate and relevant through periodic updates. Actual usage is compared to the baseline regression model, and the difference represents savings. Savings are shared with the customer on a regular basis or monitored directly by the customer through an EMIS.
SEM coaches will continue a multi-year engagement to ensure the establishment of a company culture of energy management, comparable in importance to managing quality and safety.
Also Explore ➞
Energy Assessment for your Manufacturing Facility
Request an energy assessment of your manufacturing operations and then get assistance managing the installation of the recommended energy-saving improvements.
