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Raising Standards is a three-part series on energy efficiency standards for industry:
The U.S. industrial sector is responsible for 1/3 of the energy consumed in the U.S. annually, and accounts for 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. The potential for efficiency improvement is significant, yet the savings opportunities are not being pursued for a variety of reasons, which are more institutional rather than technological.
But all that is changing. U.S. manufacturers will soon have several new and interesting voluntary standards to aid them in the pursuit of facility energy savings. These standards will be valuable tools to organizations looking to control energy costs, address carbon emissions, or demonstrate corporate social responsibility. This article is the second in a series of three profiling the new industry standards slated for release and use in the coming years.
Part Two: ANSI/MSE 2000 – A Management System for Energy
Developed by the Enterprise Innovation Institute at Georgia Tech in 2000, A Management System for Energy (ANSI/MSE 2000) is an accepted American National Standard. A revised edition was published in 2005, and ANSI/MSE 2000:2008 will be published very soon.
What this standard offers is a framework that can be used by any organization to bring energy management into the corporate organizational structure and culture. It is a relatively easy process because this standard is designed to be compatible with current management system standards such as ISO 9001 (quality management) and ISO 14001 (environmental management). Moreover, implementation of ANSI/MSE 2000 will alleviate some of the typical issues that prevent energy projects from being realized, such as energy audit findings and recommendations that sit on the shelf and are never considered by management.
ANSI/MSE 2000 is not a prescriptive approach to identifying or implementing energy savings projects, nor does it require the use of specific technologies. It does however provide a good complement to the system assessment standards discussed in Part One of this series, which are useful tools for identifying opportunities in specific systems, such as steam systems. These are more likely to be effective when paired with a management system such as ANSI/MSE 2000, which advances best management practices – most closely identified with the Plan-Do-Check-Act model – to result in continual improvement and sustained energy savings.1
Implementation of ANSI/MSE 2000 allows organizations to proactively manage their energy resources, providing the ability for long-term control of energy consumption and costs. For example, ANSI/MSE 2000 has been implemented at C&A Floorcoverings, a manufacturer of carpets and floorcoverings with several plants in Georgia. Through the implementation of the standard, the company’s management established a formal policy for energy, set energy goals and targets, and now holds regular management reviews to assess the energy performance of their facilities. The company also is finding measurable decreases in environmental impacts and is actively considering sustainable energy sources.
Written with input from Bill Meffert, PE, Georgia Institute of Technology and developer of the ANSI/MSE 2000
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