Lower your energy use with ISO 50001

In June 2011 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) introduced a new standard for energy management: ISO 50001. The goal of this standard is to provide insight into and lower the energy use for any type of company. CGI can help to achieve this goal, and prepare for ISO 50001 qualification.

In the manufacturing industry energy use can account for as much as thirty percent of the total costs. A better insight into the when, where and how of energy use can lead to a significant reduction in energy consumption and in total costs. ISO 50001 aims to help organisations to continually reduce their energy use, and therefore their energy costs and their greenhouse gas emissions.

Energy management

The way to achieve this reduction in costs and energy use is to establish, implement, maintain and improve an energy management system (EMS). With a good EMS an organisation is able to follow a systematic approach in achieving continual improvement of energy performance, including energy efficiency, energy security, energy use and consumption.

Energy performance

There are several remarkable things included in ISO 50001. One of them is the introduction of energy performance indicators, which enable you to measure and compare your energy performance. This provides insight into significant energy use of processes you often take for granted. An example is when you suddenly discover that the use of energy for cleaning exceeds that of your core production processes, as cleaning is often very energy-intensive due to the usage of steam. Such insight and knowledge provide you with the opportunity to look anew (again/afresh) at your energy use and to look for possibilities for reducing it. One outcome might be to introduce cleaning as a primary planning paradigm, instead of maximum production output.

Continual improvement

Perhaps most important is the prediction of your energy use and to be able to examine the differences between these predictions and the actual energy use. This way ISO 50001 leads to a continual improvement of your energy management by according to a plan-do-check-act approach.

Reduce your costs

ISO 50001 is not an obligation by law, but by following this standard you can not only reduce costs and reduce CO2 emissions, but you will also distinguish yourself from the competition. And it isn’t difficult to obtain. CGI has over 30 years of experience in manufacturing systems and almost all the necessary data to set up an energy management system is already collected. In a lot of cases it’s just a matter of interpreting these data in a different way. CGI can help you to integrate your manufacturing software in an EMS, and thus to meet the requirements of ISO 50001 and reduce your energy costs!

See also this article on our website (in Dutch).