9 research outputs found
Benchmarking and Self-Assessment in the Wine Industry
ABSTRACT Not all industrial facilities have the staff or the opportunity to perform a detailed audit of their operations. The lack of knowledge of energy efficiency opportunities provides an important barrier to improving efficiency. Benchmarking programs in the U.S. and abroad have shown to improve knowledge of the energy performance of industrial facilities and buildings and to fuel energy management practices. Benchmarking provides a fair way to compare the energy intensity of plants, while accounting for structural differences (e.g. the mix of products produced, climate conditions) between different facilities. In California, the winemaking industry is not only one of the economic pillars of the economy; it is also a large energy consumer, with a considerable potential for energy-efficiency improvement. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Fetzer Vineyards developed the first benchmarking tool for the California wine industry called "BEST (Benchmarking and Energy and water Savings Tool) Winery 1 . BEST Winery enables a winery to compare its energy efficiency to a best practice reference winery. Besides overall performance, the tool enables the user to evaluate the impact of implementing efficiency measures. The tool facilitates strategic planning of efficiency measures, based on the estimated impact of the measures, their costs and savings. The tool will raise awareness of current energy intensities and offer an efficient way to evaluate the impact of future efficiency measures
Recommended from our members
Demand Response and Open Automated Demand Response Opportunities for Data Centers
This study examines data center characteristics, loads, control systems, and technologies to identify demand response (DR) and automated DR (Open Auto-DR) opportunities and challenges. The study was performed in collaboration with technology experts, industrial partners, and data center facility managers and existing research on commercial and industrial DR was collected and analyzed. The results suggest that data centers, with significant and rapidly growing energy use, have significant DR potential. Because data centers are highly automated, they are excellent candidates for Open Auto-DR. 'Non-mission-critical' data centers are the most likely candidates for early adoption of DR. Data center site infrastructure DR strategies have been well studied for other commercial buildings; however, DR strategies for information technology (IT) infrastructure have not been studied extensively. The largest opportunity for DR or load reduction in data centers is in the use of virtualization to reduce IT equipment energy use, which correspondingly reduces facility cooling loads. DR strategies could also be deployed for data center lighting, and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. Additional studies and demonstrations are needed to quantify benefits to data centers of participating in DR and to address concerns about DR's possible impact on data center performance or quality of service and equipment life span
Recommended from our members
Opportunities, Barriers and Actions for Industrial Demand Response in California
In 2006 the Demand Response Research Center (DRRC) formed an Industrial Demand Response Team to investigate opportunities and barriers to implementation of Automated Demand Response (Auto-DR) systems in California industries. Auto-DR is an open, interoperable communications and technology platform designed to: Provide customers with automated, electronic price and reliability signals; Provide customers with capability to automate customized DR strategies; Automate DR, providing utilities with dispatchable operational capability similar to conventional generation resources. This research began with a review of previous Auto-DR research on the commercial sector. Implementing Auto-DR in industry presents a number of challenges, both practical and perceived. Some of these include: the variation in loads and processes across and within sectors, resource-dependent loading patterns that are driven by outside factors such as customer orders or time-critical processing (e.g. tomato canning), the perceived lack of control inherent in the term 'Auto-DR', and aversion to risk, especially unscheduled downtime. While industry has demonstrated a willingness to temporarily provide large sheds and shifts to maintain grid reliability and be a good corporate citizen, the drivers for widespread Auto-DR will likely differ. Ultimately, most industrial facilities will balance the real and perceived risks associated with Auto-DR against the potential for economic gain through favorable pricing or incentives. Auto-DR, as with any ongoing industrial activity, will need to function effectively within market structures. The goal of the industrial research is to facilitate deployment of industrial Auto-DR that is economically attractive and technologically feasible. Automation will make DR: More visible by providing greater transparency through two-way end-to-end communication of DR signals from end-use customers; More repeatable, reliable, and persistent because the automated controls strategies that are 'hardened' and pre-programmed into facility's software and hardware; More affordable because automation can help reduce labor costs associated with manual DR strategies initiated by facility staff and can be used for long-term
Recommended from our members
Seawater Source Cooling For Air Conditioning Commercial Buildings
This study is a preliminary evaluation of the potential for using Seawater Source Cooling (SWSC) to air condition commercial buildings in California. It also identifies the regulatory policies and permitting requirements that influence implementation of SWSC projects in California. The technical and economic feasibility of SWSC systems for both individual buildings and district cooling systems is examined, as is the viability of application to existing buildings and to new construction and major retrofits that employ radiant cooling and other advanced cooling technologies that allow the use of higher temperature chilled water. Three case studies are included. Recommendations for further study are presented
Recommended from our members
Public/private sector cooperation to promote industrial energy efficiency: Allied partners and the US Department of Energy
Since 1996, the US Department of Energy's Office of Industrial Technologies (USDOE) has been involved in a unique voluntary collaboration with industry called the Allied Partner program. Initially developed under the Motor Challenge program, the partnership concept continues as a central element of USDOE's BestPractices, which in 2001 integrated all of USDOE's near-term industrial program offerings including those in motors, compressed air, pump, fan, process heating and steam systems. Partnerships are sought with end use industrial companies as well as equipment suppliers and manufacturers, utilities, consultants, and state agencies that have extensive existing relationships with industrial customers. Partners are neither paid nor charged a fee for participation. Since the inception of Allied Partners, the assumption has been that these relationships could serve as the foundation for conveying a system energy-efficiency message to many more industrial facilities than could be reached through a typical government-to-end-user program model. An independent evaluation of the Motor Challenge program, reported at the last EEMODS conference, attributed US 12.1 million per year. Since the reorganization under BestPractices, the Allied Partner program has been reshaped to extend the impact of all BestPractices program activities. This new model is more ambitious than the former Motor Challenge program concerning the level of collaborative activities negotiated with Allied Partners. This paper describes in detail two new types of program initiatives involving Allied Partners: Qualified Specialist Training and Energy Events. The Qualified Specialist activity was conceived as a way of engaging the supply side of industry, consultants, and utilities to greatly increase use of decision making software developed by USDOE to assist industrial facilities in assessing the energy efficiency of their energy-using systems. To date, USDOE has launched Qualified Specialist training with member companies of the Hydraulic Institute (HI) and with distributors and consultants associated with the Compressed Air Challenge. These activities train and qualify industry professionals to use and to train customers to use USDOE's Pumping System Assessment Tool (PSAT) and AIRMaster + software programs, respectively. The industry experts provide a public benefit by greatly increasing customer access to the software and assessment techniques. Participating Specialists anticipate a business benefit by providing a valuable service to key customers that is associated with USDOE. The Energy Event concept was developed in 2001 in cooperation with the California Energy Commission in response to the state's energy crisis and has been extended to other geographic areas during 2002. The three California events, named "Energy Solutions for California Industry," relied on Allied Partners to provide system-based solutions to industrial companies as both speakers and exhibitors. These one-day events developed a model for a serious solutions-oriented format that avoids the typical trade show atmosphere through strict exhibitor guidelines, careful screening of speaker topics, and reliance on case studies to illustrate cost- and energy-saving opportunities from applying a systems approach. Future plans to use this activity model are discussed as well as lessons learned from the California series
Recommended from our members
Hurdling barriers through market uncertainty: Case studies in innovative technology adoption
The crisis atmosphere surrounding electricity availability in California during the summer of 2001 produced two distinct phenomena in commercial energy consumption decision-making: desires to guarantee energy availability while blackouts were still widely anticipated, and desires to avoid or mitigate significant price increases when higher commercial electricity tariffs took effect. The climate of increased consideration of these factors seems to have led, in some cases, to greater willingness on the part of business decision-makers to consider highly innovative technologies. This paper examines three case studies of innovative technology adoption: retrofit of time-and-temperature signs on an office building; installation of fuel cells to supply power, heating, and cooling to the same building; and installation of a gas-fired heat pump at a microbrewery. We examine the decision process that led to adoption of these technologies. In each case, specific constraints had made more conventional energy-efficient technologies inapplicable. We examine how these barriers to technology adoption developed over time, how the California energy decision-making climate combined with the characteristics of these innovative technologies to overcome the barriers, and what the implications of hurdling these barriers are for future energy decisions within the firms
Recommended from our members
Hurdling barriers through market uncertainty: Case studies in innovative technology adoption
The crisis atmosphere surrounding electricity availability in California during the summer of 2001 produced two distinct phenomena in commercial energy consumption decision-making: desires to guarantee energy availability while blackouts were still widely anticipated, and desires to avoid or mitigate significant price increases when higher commercial electricity tariffs took effect. The climate of increased consideration of these factors seems to have led, in some cases, to greater willingness on the part of business decision-makers to consider highly innovative technologies. This paper examines three case studies of innovative technology adoption: retrofit of time-and-temperature signs on an office building; installation of fuel cells to supply power, heating, and cooling to the same building; and installation of a gas-fired heat pump at a microbrewery. We examine the decision process that led to adoption of these technologies. In each case, specific constraints had made more conventional energy-efficient technologies inapplicable. We examine how these barriers to technology adoption developed over time, how the California energy decision-making climate combined with the characteristics of these innovative technologies to overcome the barriers, and what the implications of hurdling these barriers are for future energy decisions within the firms
Recommended from our members
Benchmarking and Self-Assessment in the Wine Industry
Not all industrial facilities have the staff or the opportunity to perform a detailed audit of their operations. The lack of knowledge of energy efficiency opportunities provides an important barrier to improving efficiency. Benchmarking programs in the U.S. and abroad have shown to improve knowledge of the energy performance of industrial facilities and buildings and to fuel energy management practices. Benchmarking provides a fair way to compare the energy intensity of plants, while accounting for structural differences (e.g., the mix of products produced, climate conditions) between different facilities. In California, the winemaking industry is not only one of the economic pillars of the economy; it is also a large energy consumer, with a considerable potential for energy-efficiency improvement. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Fetzer Vineyards developed the first benchmarking tool for the California wine industry called "BEST (Benchmarking and Energy and water Savings Tool) Winery". BEST Winery enables a winery to compare its energy efficiency to a best practice reference winery. Besides overall performance, the tool enables the user to evaluate the impact of implementing efficiency measures. The tool facilitates strategic planning of efficiency measures, based on the estimated impact of the measures, their costs and savings. The tool will raise awareness of current energy intensities and offer an efficient way to evaluate the impact of future efficiency measures