Topic: Role of energy manager

Name: A Arivalagan
Email: a_arivalagan@yahoo.co.in

ROLE OF ENERGY MANAGER

ENERGY ACCOUNTING IN OUR ORGANISATION

ABSTRACT

Energy accounting is a system to record, analyze and report energy consumption and
cost on a regular basis. Just as financial accounting is used for the effective
management of an organization, energy accounting is critical to energy management. It
can be one of the most cost-effective tools for industries to cut energy costs. This
document will discuss some of the methods and means of energy accounting, at my
organization namely, M/s Seshasayee Paper and Boards Limited

Introduction
Seshasayee Paper and Boards Limited (SPB) , an integrated pulp and paper mill,
incorporated in the year 1960 with an initial capacity of 20,000 tons of paper and paper
boards per annum, is located in Erode in Tamilnadu State, India. SPB has over the
years gradually expanded to the present installed capacity of 115000 tonnes per
annum. Today SPB exports nearly 20% of its production to various countries with an
annual turnover of Rs 4000 million and it employs about 1600 persons.

SPB has five paper machines to produce a wide range of fine papers viz., printing and
writing papers, on line starch coated papers, on line pigment coated papers, super
calendered papers, posters, paper boards, packaging papers, A4 business/copier
paper, coated boards, etc. SPB has production facilities to produce both bleach wood
and bagasse pulp and has a chemical recovery section. The utilities include power
boilers, turbo-generators, water treatment plant and an effluent treatment plant.
REASONS FOR ENERGY ACCOUNTING

There are many reasons for energy accounting. Before we can manage the energy
costs, we have to know what they are!. Energy accounting provides how much enenrgy
is used and how much it costs. It also provides a means to effectively communicate
energy data that user department heads, staff, workers, can use to improve cost
management. Hence Energy Accounting will help
• Record and attribute energy consumption and costs
• Trouble shoot energy problems and billing errors
• Provide a basis for prioritizing the energy capital investments
• Evaluate energy program success and communicate results,
• Create incentives for energy management
• Create Budgets more accurately
• Position the company to shop lower prices of energy in fuel market
CAUSES FOR VARIATIONS IN ENERGY
Energy accounting also helps us to better understand the variations in energy
consumption. The major causes for change in the energy consumption, we have found,
are
• Variations in weather
• Changes in operating schedules
• Shut down of plants for maintenance
• Changes in Frequency of power
• Level of capacity utilization of plant, equipment, mill as a whole
• Changes in the raw material quality (high moisture wood consumes more steam and
lead to lower capacity utilization in stationary digesters)
• Changes in method of operations (especially operator to operator). Some operator
switch of idle equipment during a shut (say during break down maintenance)
• Changes in quality of product produced (surface sized paper consumes more steam
than a paper with our surface sizing in size press)
• Higher gsm paper consumes more steam and power than lower GSM paper.
SPB’s ENERGY MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
One of the organizational strategies of SPB is to continuously focus on reducing the
cost of energy with a view to get the leverage to excel even in the highly competitive
paper business. On the energy front, SPB’s policy is to optimize the usage of resources
like water, power fuel and raw materials. SPB adopts three methods simultaneously to
tackle the energy issue. They are
(i) Maximizing capacity utilization of plant and machinery
(ii) Implementation of innovative energy conservation measures
(iii) Energy substitution
To achieve success in the above-mentioned strategy, SPB has established a good
energy monitoring and accounting system. In fact the monitoring is done by the
Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) on a daily basis with the department heads.
CMD goes round the mill every day and meet the section heads in their department and
reviews the energy consumption of the department . In addition to this the President
(Operations) also review the energy consumption in the daily production meetings. The
frequency of various reviews are given below:

Frequency Details of items Reviewing

discussed Authority
Daily: Energy consumption, Cost of energy P(O), CMD
Fortnightly: Energy consumption and Energy conservation Projects CMD
Monthly: Energy consumption and Energy conservation Projects CMD

To support these reviews the energy accounting system at SPB is completely

computerized and they are discussed below:

Electrical Energy Consumption monitoring & reporting system

An automatic Computer Data Logger is installed in the main electrical feeders for
capturing the electrical consumption details continuously. Besides this the mill has
installed 126 energy meters at various locations in the electrical distribution system in
addition to TNEB's meter MD monitoring unit. The energy meter readings are taken
every day at 5.30AM and fed to mill's main computer system. The program written in
ORACLE software directly takes in the energy meter readings and calculates the
consumption in various meters. From this consumption, the electrical energy for various
sections and major equipment are automatically calculated by the program. The
electrical distribution connection logic has been incorporated in the program itself.
Electrical energy consumption reports are printed out and distributed to various sections
by the electrical department daily.

In some of the sections, electricity consumption in kW (instant load) is indicated in the

DCS computer. This enables the operators to understand the variations, what is normal
load, abnormal load, etc.

Thermal energy consumption - monitoring and reporting system

The mill has installed on-line weigh scale in fuel feeding conveyors to boilers. The fuel
consumption in power boilers are accordingly monitored and reported by Boiler House
department. There are 26 nos. of steam flow meters installed at the various
consumption sections/equipment are taken every day at 5.30AM and the steam
consumption for each section/equipment is computed based on the flow meter constant.
The steam consumption, steam generation, fuel consumption, power generation, are
feed to mill's main computer system. The program written in ORACLE software use
these data and prepares a steam distribution and balance report. The steam distribution
logic has been incorporated in the program itself. Steam balance, fuel consumption,
power generation reports are printed out and distributed to various sections by the
electrical department daily.

All paper machines, stationary digesters and continuous digesters, evaporators,

recovery boilers are fitted with digital steam consumption meters for knowing the instant
steam consumption as well as shift, daily steam consumption.

ROLE OF ENERGY MANAGER IN ENERGY ACCOUNTING

As the designated Energy Manager of SPB, I also monitor the consumption every day in
the morning and look for variations in the consumption. These variations are discussed
with the section heads and reasons understood. Corrective actions are taken for
abnormal consummations by section heads. Computer print outs of daily consumption
of both electricity and steam are distributed to the section heads on the next day.
During the review meetings conducted by CMD, the consummations are compared
monthly basis and the reasons are discussed with the section head for short term as
well as long term corrective actions. However, abnormal consumption are identified and
informed to electrical (energy meter) and instruments (steam flow meter) for verifying
the correctness of the measuring devices.

Conclusions

SPB has a good established monitoring and accounting system for energy
consumption. Complete system is computerized with the development of in-house
software using ORACLE software and DEVELOPER-2000. For electricity consumption
at the feeder level, automatic data logger has been installed. Computerized reports are
generated for understanding the specific energy consumption and variation there on.
Further proper energy accounting helped us to account for energy consumption for
various products.