What is an Energy Management System?

One afternoon, a boss called me complaining that his subordinates were trying to persuade him to build an energy management system.

“I really don’t understand what this is. How many years will it take to recoup my investment? Are there government subsidies? Can’t we wait for government subsidies before buying it?”

The boss is busy every day, working hard to support his family. He only understands when it comes to making money; he easily gets confused when it comes to spending money.

This article is written for all bosses, and for those of us who rack our brains every day trying to persuade our bosses. To assess whether building an energy management system is worthwhile, we must first understand what it is and what benefits it brings.
What is an Energy Management System?

From mobile phones, computers, and cars to buildings, factories, cities, and national power grids, anything involving the integration of various electrical devices, power generation equipment, and energy storage devices requires an energy management system. However, probably not many people have actually seen one; it seems mysterious, like a black box, because we usually lack a deep understanding of our own energy usage. For example, if someone asks you what the peak electricity consumption is? When do peak electricity consumption occur? What percentage of devices are the most power-consuming? How can we save energy? How can we reduce carbon emissions? How can we save on electricity bills and even make money through energy management? Before establishing an energy management system, these questions lack quantifiable answers and methods. An energy management system is designed to solve these problems. It’s an information and communication tool that combines measurement, transmission, recording, display, analysis, and control. With it, we can solve problems scientifically, providing a basis for decision-making.

Eight Functions of an Energy Management System to Help Your Company “Avoid Risks and Increase Energy Savings”

Those who urge you to save energy and reduce carbon emissions are hoping you’ll start taking energy management actions, and an energy management system is a tool. In fact, an energy management system offers much more than you think! Energy experts have compiled eight functions and benefits that an energy management system can bring:

Function 1: Identifying Energy-Saving Hotspots

The first priority in thinking about energy conservation and carbon reduction is saving money. This is where the first function of energy management comes in: identifying energy-saving hotspots. Once you take energy management actions, install electricity meters, and use the energy management system to record, analyze, and visualize your electricity consumption behavior, you can further understand your electricity usage behavior and rationally consider how to save energy, reduce costs, and reduce carbon emissions. Just like a medical consultation, whether it’s Western medicine’s temperature checks, blood tests, and MRI scans, or traditional Chinese medicine’s observation, auscultation, inquiry, and palpation, a diagnosis is necessary to understand the symptoms and the lesions, allowing for targeted treatment.

Function Two: Demand Management

What is demand? Demand is how quickly you consume electricity. If someone uses too much electricity too quickly, the cable the power company runs to your home might burn out or trip, causing a power outage. For grid safety and proper dispatch management, power companies will individually sign demand contracts with larger users, requesting them not to use electricity too quickly. Exceeding the demand contract will incur penalties. Therefore, demand management is essentially about managing your wallet.

An energy management system can monitor users’ electricity consumption in real time and notify them to reduce consumption when there is a possibility of exceeding the contract. It can also automatically control consumption to avoid exceeding the contract, such as turning off unnecessary appliances, raising air conditioning temperatures, starting generators to supplement power, and discharging energy storage systems, achieving energy saving and cost reduction.

Function 3: Scheduling Control

The energy management system can also schedule the on/off of equipment power or reduce equipment load at specific times, allowing equipment to save unnecessary power consumption within acceptable usage quality limits, thus saving energy, costs, and reducing carbon emissions.

Function 4: Peak Shaving and Valley Filling

If the user has energy storage equipment, which acts like a reservoir for peak shaving and valley filling, the energy management system can also include the storage within its scope. It can schedule electricity usage over time, utilizing the difference between peak and off-peak electricity prices to save on electricity bills. It’s important to note that the energy storage installed here is not for carbon reduction, but for saving money!

Function 5: Electricity Price Calculation

Power companies offer a variety of electricity pricing schemes with numerous parameters. The same electricity usage will result in different costs depending on the progressive pricing, time-of-use pricing, and contracted capacity selection. Electricity price calculation refers to the user’s past electricity usage behavior to calculate the costs of various power company schemes, allowing the user to find the most economical pricing scheme and contracted capacity to save money.

Function Six: Calculate Your Electricity Costs and Emissions

Apartments, campus air conditioning systems, commercial offices, and factories can all use energy management systems to measure user electricity consumption, calculate individual electricity costs, and charge according to the user-pays principle, creating an incentive for energy conservation.

Furthermore, in the era of carbon neutrality, everyone must bear the responsibility of reducing carbon emissions. Energy management systems are an essential tool for clarifying individual responsibilities. Although data from energy management systems cannot currently be directly used as Category II carbon inventory data, anyone aiming to reduce emissions cannot do without an energy management system. Internally, energy management systems serve as a management basis; for industries in the green supply chain, emissions are of paramount importance, affecting order availability, and must be meticulously calculated through energy management systems.

Function Seven: Participate in  Demand Bidding

If users cooperate with the power company to reduce load during agreed-upon or pre-notified periods to alleviate grid pressure, Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) will provide payment or reduce your electricity bill. Energy management systems can support demand bidding or advanced automatic demand response, achieving load adjustment functions 24/7 and quickly. Demand bidding and demand response both require energy management systems to calculate the baseline and benefits of offloading, or even fully automated offloading capabilities. Automatic demand response capabilities have already been implemented in the “Air-Conditioned Classes in Elementary and Junior High Schools” program in Taiwan.

Function Eight: Participation in  Electricity Trading

In recent years, the proportion of intermittent energy in the power grid has been increasing. The rapid fluctuations in intermittent energy generation mean that traditional large-scale generators cannot keep up with the response speed, necessitating rapidly responding reserve resources to maintain grid stability and security. Reserve resources are divided into two main types: power-based and energy-based. Power-based reserve resources are designed for emergencies, not long-term sustainability. They are generally implemented through rapidly responding energy storage systems, which temporarily inject power (power) into the grid when there is insufficient power (low frequency). Energy-based backup resources are designed to provide temporary relief, not emergency power. If the grid remains insufficient after emergency power generation, energy-based backup resources will take over to supplement power for a longer period. Self-generated power equipment such as diesel generators, cogeneration boilers, or large-scale energy storage systems can participate in electricity trading; Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) will pay you for meeting service quality standards.

Various backup resources involve complex equipment and control logic, requiring a professional energy management system to manage system communication, power measurement, power control, battery management, scheduling, dispatch logic, and even the integration of peripheral subsystems such as environmental control, fire protection, and access control. Only then can rapid and accurate monitoring be achieved, safely and correctly helping you generate revenue.

“Seeking good fortune” means saving money and even making money; “avoiding misfortune” means meeting public expectations of your carbon reduction efforts. An energy management system can help your company avoid misfortune and attract good fortune. If you want further advice from the energy industry, you can participate in the Green Transformation Marathon Shortest Path Support Program. We wish you every success!

Article Source: Yan Jiaxin, Technology Integrator of Energy Information and Communications
https://greenimpact.cc/Articles/detail?cid=1&id=523
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