Clean & Clever Energy Toolkits. Understanding Peak Demand

Transcription

1 Clean & Clever Energy Toolkits Understanding Peak Demand

2 Acknowledgement This Activity received funding from the Department of Industry as part of the Energy Efficiency Information Grants Program. Disclaimer The views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of the Commonwealth of Australia, and the Commonwealth does not accept responsibility for any information or advice contained herein. BIEDO Burnett Inland Economic Development Organisation 10 Moore Street, (PO Box 94), Goomeri, Qld 4601 Phone: (07) Website: BIEDO Clean and Clever Facebook Page: 2

3 How to use this fact sheet Understanding Peak Demand This fact sheet forms part of the Clean and Clever toolkits, to assist you to reduce your business energy use. Please read this fact sheet in conjunction with the Energy Information Toolkit and the Planning, Implementing and Monitoring Toolkit. Additional fact sheets that may assist you: Understanding your energy bill These can be found at What is electricity demand? Electricity demand is the amount of electricity required by businesses, homes and industry. Electricity suppliers need to meet the demand to enable a continuous supply. Various times of day and seasonal variations can make managing demand problematic. When demand is higher than normal, it is called peak demand. What is peak demand in a business? Businesses will generally operate with a standard requirement for electricity. Particular equipment may cause a spike in the electricity use, particularly during start-up. For example, a main street retailer will generally have lights, cash register and air-conditioning on. Then, if someone was to turn the electric kettle on, you would have a spike in electricity use. This would be considered a peak demand (although a very small one). Source: Ergon Energy For more information on peak demand, please visit 3

4 Why is peak demand an issue? Demand in the residential sector often hits a peak demand between 4pm-8pm, while business and industry are also still operating. This is due to people arriving home, turning on appliances and quite often the air conditioner. During summer, air conditioners contribute greatly to the demand on the electricity grid. Electricity suppliers need to manage peak demand so that consumers can rely upon a consistent electricity supply with minimal outages (black outs). To manage the industry and business sectors use of electricity and to reduce the strain from the residential sector, electricity retailers use demand tariffs that penalise peak electricity use. Peak demand may not be a direct issue to many businesses unless you are on a tariff that penalises peak demand. For example, Tariff 41, which has a consumption charge and a peak demand charge. How do you manage peak demand? Depending on your business and equipment requirements, peak demand can be minimised to ensure you are charged accordingly. If you have large mechanical equipment that uses more electricity to warm up during start-up phases, schedule staggered starts for equipment may reduce your peak. For example, if you turned one piece of equipment on, you could wait until it has warmed up and reduced its demand of electricity before starting the next piece of equipment. Alternative ways to manage peak demand is by installing monitoring equipment which will assist you to understand how and when your energy use peaks. There are a number of companies that install smart energy monitors and provide the software to monitor your usage from your computer. As an example, please visit please note that BIEDO does not provide recommendations for which business you should engage. 4

5 Case study: Proteco Proteco is a Clean and Clever Energy Champion. As such, they have implemented a number of actions to reduce energy use and costs. For the full case study, please visit Action: Adjusted production shifts. They are open 4 longer days a week, rather than 5, which has reduced the number of start-ups and shut-downs of machinery needed. Benefits: This has given Proteco an extra 2 hours of productivity per week from the reduction of time spent for machinery to start-up or shut-down. Proteco has saved around 20% in energy costs from this restructuring. Action: Staggered the start-up of various machinery. Benefits: No change in energy efficiency but reduces peaks in energy use. As the various machinery used in the manufacturing process use more energy in start-up phase, spreading their energy use across time allowed Proteco to minimise peak demand and reduce potential price penalties. 5