Putting it all Together: Closing the Gaps

3.2 Evaluating and calculating energy savings and other impacts of EMOs

The energy savings of the identified EMOs should now be evaluated. A simple quantification of the differences in energy inputs between the present and the improved states – expressed both in kWh and dollars, on an annualized basis – will do.

The information requires inclusion of capital costs for modifications/improvements and calculation of rate of return on capital invested, or return on investment (ROI). Other implications (benefits/drawbacks) of the improvement project should also be captured in a quantified way, whenever possible (e.g., improvement of production capacity by 15%, consumption of compressed air reduced by 20%, or $x/year).

Remember that the purpose of the evaluation is to determine a preliminary ranking of the projects for further selection. While attempting to use reasonably close estimates, do not expend too much effort in trying to achieve four-decimal accuracy of the outcomes at this stage – the correctness of inputs is more important.

To organize all this information into a long list of projects (use the classifications listed in Section 3.1), a table can be made up as shown in Table 6. The columns are self-explanatory, except the “Benefits-Cost” column, where annual energy saved per investment dollar is stated.

TABLE 6:
Long list of EMO projects