An energy audit is an inspection, survey and analysis of energy flows, for energy conservation in a building, process or system to reduce the amount of energy input into the system without negatively affecting the output(s).

1. INTRODUCTION TO
ENERGY AUDITINGControlling costs in today's environment has become a critical priority that requires clear
strategies for managing the variety of expenses incurred on a daily basis. Improving the
energy efficiency of the organization offers many cost reduction opportunities.
Amit Kumar Senapati
Certified Energy Auditor: Reg. No. EA-13771
An energy audit is an inspection, survey and analysis of energy flows, for energy
conservation in a building, process or system to reduce the amount of energy input into
the system without negatively affecting the output(s).

2. 1. Energy Audit Introduction:
1.1 Energy Efficiency Cycle
1.1.1 Energy Audit inform us three things:-
1. Our current energy usage.
2. Our potential to save energy.
3. To prioritize our actions.
1.1.2 Common Audit Opportunities are:-
1. Pumping.
2. Ventilation.
3. Lighting.
4. Compressed Air.
5. Steam.
6. Refrigeration.
7. HVAC.
8. Vacuum.
9. Process Machinery.
1.1.3 Energy Wasters:-
In Industrial facilities, the largest energy wasters are:-
1. Steam Traps.
2. Compressed Air Leaks.
In Commercial Buildings, the Largest energy wasters are:-
1. HVAC Systems.
2. Lighting.

3. Other potential areas where Energy Conservation is possible by improving upon:-
1. Controls.
2. Operations and maintenance.
3. Employee Awareness.
1.1.4 Previous Energy Audit provides us the following trend.
a) Efficient devices and installations :-
i) Low consumption devices and efficient installations can lead to energy efficiency gains of 10
to 15% of total consumption. This is also called as passive energy efficiency.
ii) E.g. of low consumption devices and efficient installations are:-
1) Well insulated buildings.
2) High efficiency motors.
3) More Efficient Lamps.
b) Optimized Usage of installation:-
i) Optimized usage of installation and devices will net a 5 to 15% increase in energy efficiency.
ii) E.g. of Optimized usage of installation are as follows:-
1) Upto 40% of the potential saving for a motor system is realized by the drive and
automation.
2) Upto 30% of potential savings in a building lighting system can be realized via the
lighting control.
c) Monitoring & Maintenance:-
i) Permanent monitoring and maintenance program will garner efficiency of an additional 2 to
8%.
ii) Continuous measurement is required to react in case of deviations.
iii) Automation and permanent monitoring are examples of active energy efficiency.

4. Energy Audit also tell us that savings can be lost due to various factors:-
a) Unplanned, unmanaged shutdowns of equipment and processes can be costly in terms of energy.
b) Lack of automation and regulation of areas such as motors and heating can lose up to 12% per year.
c) Monitoring and maintenance program to preserve continuity of behaviors, upto 8% per year is lost.
1.1.5 Types of Energy Audits:-
A. Walkthough
i) A walkthrough is a light audit that consists of a relatively brief inspection of the facility to identify
maintenance, operational or deficient equipment issues and to identify areas which need further
evaluation.
ii) Some quick-wins can be identified and some estimated financial calculations can be done at
this step.
B. Comprehensive Audits
i) Evaluating the energy consuming systems of the building or plant in detail.
ii) Performing specific monitoring, metering or testing to identify actual energy consumption and
losses.
iii) Economic evaluation of the identified opportunities, including cost and benefit.
iv) Computer modeling to determine the year round energy consumption and/or savings.
v) Financial analysis to support investment decision.
vi) This type of audit may be needed to obtain funding for the projects identified-and is sometimes
known as “investment grade audit”.
Selection of the Audit type depend on the following factors:-
A. Funding availability for the audit.
B. Cost and potential of the Energy Conservation Opportunity(ECO).
C. Required accuracy for the audit information.
D. Type of facility.
E. Function of facility.
F. Processes within the facility.

5. 1.1.6 Audit activities of the Auditor are as follows:-
A. Understanding the site and gathering the data.
i) Understand the site and are able to gather appropriate data.
ii) Employing well-written questionnaires, conducting site visits helps the auditor with a better
understanding of the operating conditions.
iii) E.g. of items to review would be the process, including the identification of the main steps and
energy requirements, the facilities and utilities such as compressors, HVAC, Electrical
networks, Building envelope etc. The review also includes the Building management system –
such as HVAC control and lighting control as well as the energy awareness and behavior of the
people at the site.
B. Measuring/Monitoring/Testing.
i) Key tests will provide data about the equipment or information to show if certain types of
improvements are feasible.
ii) If pre-existing data is not available or not sufficient , the auditor may also need to measure and
monitor the energy profile and load in order to identify energy losses.
iii) Larger buildings and factories contain complex systems. Optimizing the performance of systems
such as variable air volume HVAC systems requires continuous monitoring and control
adjustments.
C. Assessing the situation.
i) Checking and analyzing all of the data collected.
ii) Looking for Energy Conservation Opportunities.
iii) Performing cost-benefit calculations.
D. Proposing an action plan.
i) Provide ways to manage and control power consumption and costs.
ii) Propose energy savings solutions.
Some of the areas where Energy Audit information can be found out:-
A. Data from energy suppliers-such as tariff structure, or machine suppliers-such as pump characteristic curves.
B. Data from facility specification documents-such as site layout, chilled-water distribution schema etc.
C. Data from the operating schedule and utilization or occupancy data of the plant for correlation with the
energy consumption.
D. Manually collected data-for examples-from meters or extracted from other systems(monthly electricity
consumption, production quantities etc.
E. Temporary meters may be used to record values that are not normally monitored but that are useful
specifically for the audit analysis.
F. Historical data recorded in the Energy Management System-this will encompass things like the loading
profile, the power factor, the energy curve and the temperature curve.
1.1.7 Main steps of Energy Audit:
A. Kick off Meeting
i) An audit begins with a “kick off meeting”.
ii) The meeting may include the facility manager, energy manager, maintenance supervisor,
internal auditors, external auditors, production manager, financial department manager etc.
iii) During the meeting the audit process is discussed, global plan for the audit is reviewed.
iv) Information needed by the auditor is provided in this meeting.
v) It is also an opportunity for auditors to ask for information about processes, energy and the
modernization plan for the facility.

6. B. On Site inspection.
i) Making visits to the workshop, substation, warehouse and offices to understand the process and
how energy is consumed.
ii) Maintenance technician responsible for the area being visited should accompany the auditor
throughout that part of the audit.
iii) The auditor may also ask questions for the maintenance supervisor, equipment/area operators
and other facility staff to understand the building and the process operation performance
problems.
iv) Key success factor for the audit is to ensure that necessary people are aware of the audit and
available on the day.
v) The auditor will also take measurements during this visit-these measurements may be snapshot
measures.
vi) The on-site inspection should be closed by a wrap-up meeting with the same attendees as the
kick-off meeting to announce the first results of the inspection as well as making a final
agreement on the deliverable content and a restitution date.
C. Data Analysis.
i) Performing engineering calculations.
ii) Running simulations and tools if necessary.
iii) Contacting solution suppliers to find the cost of the solution and then performing cost-benefit
calculations.
iv) Writing the deliverables-this will include a presentation and/o report.
D. Results restitution.
i) Result restitution is the output of an energy audit.
ii) We should use a simple, direct writing style to ensure the report is clear, understandable and
readable.
1.1.8 Audit Report:
At minimum the audit report should include the minimum:-
A. Executive Summary.
i) The summary should be short, concise and to the point.
ii) The executive summary will also list the recommended energy conservation measures and
show the implementation cost as well as financial savings amount.
B. Energy Cost Analysis.
i) Energy bill analysis-such as comments on charges and penalties.
ii) Energy consumption break-out
iii) Demand Curve
C. Energy Management Recommendations.
i) Recommendation section lists the areas that were evaluated in the scope of the audit.
ii) Discussion on Energy Management Opportunities that has been determined to be cost effective,
and aligned with the financial evaluation criteria collected before the audit.

7. iii) Each recommendation should summarize the energy demand and cost savings, the
implementation cost and the return on investment using the customer’s financial criteria.
iv) For each recommendation, the method used to arrive at the savings estimate should be
referenced or explained here.
D. Proposition of Energy Action Plan
i) This plan will detail the recommended actions and the implementation schedule.
ii) Quick wins and short pay backs should be implemented first, so that savings can be generated
rapidly and provide money to pay for high investment solutions.
iii) The plan should also propose a monitoring system for following-up on the performance and for
driving continual improvement.
E. Energy Audit- Follow-up action
i) Audit is the first step for starting an Energy Management Program,
ii) Follow-up actions are necessary to benefit from the audits and drive continuous improvements for
the site.
a) Validate the energy action plan and the implementation schedule.
b) Define the energy savings goals.
c) Implement the action plan.
d) Establish indicators for measuring the fulfillment of the goals.
e) Set a baseline and compare the performance over time.
f) Seek additional opportunities for continuous imperovement.
F. Case Study
i) Case study on : Our case study involves a metal and plastics assembly line processing plant
located in Central Europe. The surface area of the plant is 27,000 square meters which includes
24,000 square meters for production and 3000square meters for the offices. Annual turnover
amounts to 24 million euros. The energy consumptions of the plant are five giga-watt-hours of
electricity, 904 tons of coal and 26,000 cubic meters of water. A standard, comprehensive audit
was performed.
ii) Executive summary : Here we see the executive summary. A matrix of benefit versus cost has
been created, and the colored areas show the ROI thresholds. The solutions are then categorized
into different application families. As you can see from the results, several opportunities for
potential energy savings were uncovered. The ROI for these investments expressed as simple
payback period ranged from less than a year to less than 10 years .These were further
categorized according to the customer's investment criteria: Quick wins were projects with simple
payback ROI of less than 1 year and an investment less than 5000€. This amounted to 5.1 % or
19,000 € of total savings. Other savings were calculated from the projects having simple payback
ROI less than 3 years. This amounted to a further 20%, or 73,000€. The total estimation of
projects that met the customer's investment criteria was 25.1 % savings, equal to 92,000 € .

8. iii) List of recommended energy conservation measures and shows the implementation cost and
financial savings amount.

9. iv) In parallel with discovering energy savings opportunities, the audit revealed the plant’s strong and
weak points, as well as the consistency in its current approach of energy management.In order to
perform this analysis, three main fields were investigated:
• People commitment.
• Measures and controls.
• Assessment.
References:
1. How to make money by Energy Auditing. Author. Balasubhraminiam.
2. Schneider Energy University.