A challenging combination of rising energy costs, the need to improve sustainability and the risk of power disruption has made energy management increasingly challenging. Most businesses are now aware that they can ill afford to simply carry on as usual when it comes to how they purchase and use energy, and that investment in infrastructure improvements is vital to remaining competitive and profitable.
However, making the decision on what technologies to invest in, and what areas of energy management they need to address most urgently, can be very challenging. As growing numbers of sites generate and manage energy more proactively on-site, finding solutions that offer improvements across the board becomes increasingly complex.
Without the right platform in place that provides a clear picture of how a site is currently using energy and generating carbon, the impact of potential solutions across an entire site can be difficult to judge accurately. At best, this can result in investment into a technology that may not be the best solution available. At worst, this can risk businesses investing in solutions that compromise some of their energy management priorities, or that don’t function as expected. These pitfalls can include:
Failing to Consider the Energy Trilemma
The energy trilemma refers to the often-complex balancing act between three different aspects of energy management: cost effective energy procurement, improved sustainability and ensuring reliable power across a site. Any improvements undertaken when it comes to energy infrastructure have to be carefully considered to ensure that they contribute positively to each of these objectives, or at least don’t actively undermine them. A technology might be ideally suited to solving one of these issues, such as diesel generators providing emergency power for a site, but at the same time compromise sustainability efforts.
Technology That Doesn’t Contribute
Many energy technologies come with substantial costs, which can risk becoming a sunk cost when they are only performing a very specific task for limited periods. A common example is many forms of backup or emergency power provision, that are only called upon on the rare occasion that a site experiences power disruption. The rest of the time they are sitting idle, often actively contributing to overall energy costs due to power losses, while producing no useful output.
Exceeding Available Capacity
With increased electrification replacing fossil fuel processes and the growth on distributed generation, local distribution networks are increasingly constrained. For individual sites, many are already operated at or close to their authorised supply capacity, the amount of electricity that the grid makes available for a specific site. Subsequently investing in a high-demand technology, such as rapid EV charging, can quickly become a major headache as the site lacks sufficient power to allow them to be operated as needed. With local networks already constrained, at best a site may face a lengthy wait for additional connection works to be carried out to provide additional capacity, or at worse be told by their DNO that capacity simply isn’t available, leaving their new investment effectively useless.
Acting on Incomplete Data
Ensuring a complete picture of how a site uses energy, and especially where inefficiencies may lie, is vital to making sound improvement decisions. Investing in measures to reduce costs or carbon is vital, but without complete, actionable data you could be overlooking more cost effective, impactful improvements elsewhere. It may be that a particular piece of equipment is particularly energy-efficient, or certain processes can be changed or refined at minimal cost to unlock significant benefits.
Getting a Clear Picture with Powerstar
With Powerstar, every project we undertake starts with a comprehensive site survey and feasibility study, ensuring that we start by providing clients with a clear picture of their current energy usage, areas that they can improve and how a proposed solution will impact on each aspect of their energy management strategy. This ensures complete transparency in terms of impact on energy costs, carbon emissions and power resilience, with our comprehensive digital modelling services ensuring that solutions are comprehensively tested and demonstrated before any work begins on site.
All of our technologies are designed to deliver on each aspect of the energy trilemma challenge, delivering lower costs, better sustainability and improved power resilience across a site. We also specialise in unlocking projects that may otherwise be hampered or prevented due to grid constraint issues, ensuring that any potential pitfalls are identified, accounted for and corrected well in advance of them becoming an issue.
