In-house training: Vilnis Vesma takes questions at an in-house training course on monitoring and targeting for Knauf Insulations, held in Dusseldorf in September 2012. Other organisations that have used this service include Building Automation Solutions, Caparo, Cylon Controls, Douglas Borough Council, Efficiency Direct, EnerNOC (California), Matrix SEE, Northern Design, Pacific Control Systems (Dubai and New Jersey) and Wessex Water.

Certified Energy Manager: this flagship qualification, already held by over ten thousand professionals around the world, is coming to the UK with the first seminars and examination being held in two blocks in November and December. Read more...

Transports of delight: Dron Kyle of Oxford Bus Company (standing) tells members of the local Energy Efficiency Forum about the dramatic success of their driver training programme which saw fuel savings of 5% to 13% across their fleet, plus a reduced accident rate. In-cab telematic monitors (right) warn drivers if their braking, acceleration, speed, idling or engine revs go outside the parameters for good fuel economy... And there are prizes for good performers. OBC are getting their money back in savings every 9 months. Just the ticket (Enough whimsical wordplay, -Ed.)

Coming to a country near you? Vilnis Vesma (seated, centre) with delegates at his energy monitoring and targeting workshop in Santiago, Chile hosted by Agencia Chilena de Eficiencia Energetica on 9 March 2012. In June this workshop (and another on ISO50001) were held as open events in Hong Kong, and then it's California in August and Germany in September (both in-company events). Watch this space...

Once you have achieved savings from an energy-saving campaign, how do you make the results persistent? Reading a book like John P. Kotter's "Leading Change" you would conclude that it is as much about what you do before the campaign as afterwards.
(read the full advert or the one about carrots... )

Briton lands top M&V post: 24 January 2012: the Efficiency Valuation Organisation, publishers and promoters of the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP) has appointed a Briton as its executive director. Graham Wooding (left) is pictured here on day 2 of his new appointment with John Cowan, EVO's chairman, visiting ESCO-Europe in London. IPMVP is the de facto worldwide standard for the objective evaluation of energy projects. More on EVO; and M&V training in UK

Vilnis Vesma on a technical consultancy visit to the Chilean Energy Efficiency Agency (AChEE) in January 2012, advising on the implementation of ISO50001 and particularly on the integration of energy monitoring and targeting. Pictured left with staff of AChEE, their client Norske Skog and consultants PwC at the Bio Bio paper mill in Concepcion. Right: with electricity suppliers Endesa at their power station at Quintero.

We have set up a new web site with resources and facilities for people setting up energy management systems. Club50001.com includes free resources, links to training and publications, and other resources including ideas on how to achieve credible compliance without the cost of external certification.

The second edition of Vilnis Vesma's textbook Energy management principles and practice, published by British Standards Institution, came out on 14 November 2011. Written for managers with little or no energy expertise, it seeks to provide a quick introduction to the subject in all its aspects: technical, management methods, and human factors. You can read more about it and purchase a copy from the BSI shop by clicking here.

There's another chance to participate in one of Vilnis Vesma's energy monitoring and targeting workshops on 24 May in Birmingham

Check out other energy training

Left: working with engineers at Pacific Controls Inc. in Somerset, NJ to critique and improve energy dashboards used by their remote building management clients. Right: the team get to grips redesigning and optimising displays. This was the final day of a three-day in-house training and development assignment carried in November 2011.

"The whole workshop has been incredibly useful" - Arjun Punukollu, Assistant Manager

Vilnis Vesma (left) with Jigar Shah of the Institute for Industrial Productivity in Beijing on an IIP-funded mission to advise the Chinese National Institute for Standardisation on energy systems optimisation in energy-intensive industrial sectors. Vilnis delivered a conference paper on performance evaluation and participated in several days of workshops with professionals from CNIS and the oil refining and iron and steel industries.

VESMA.COM is now a BSI affiliate. So if (for example) you were to buy a copy of BS ISO 50001 by clicking here rather than going direct to BSI or elsewhere, you will benefit this web site through the commission that we earn.

Delegates at July's Energising the Workforce workshop in London engage in group exercises, designing their own motivation and awareness programmes from first principles, based on what they have learned about industrial psychology and persuasion.

Seasonal daylight availability: one reader (and a number of people attending my M&T workshops) have recently asked if there are reference tables of the monthly hours of darkness, which they'd like to use for checking electricity consumed in photocell-controlled lighting circuits. This downloadable Excel workbook contains both monthly and weekly default values based on published lighting-up times for latitude 52°N. The figures are probably fine for most of England and Wales.

Metered natural gas supplies ideally need to be corrected for changes in calorific value (CV) as well as temperature and pressure (illustrated). Click here for information about where to get daily CVs (UK only).

One of the delegates on a monitoring and targeting workshop in Cardiff asked me if I could provide a worksheet for calculating degree days from local maximum/minimum temperature readings. So I have created one and sent it to past delegates. Also, readers who have signed up to receive newsletters from me have been sent a link to the free download.

Might it be possible to compare the energy performances of burners, air compressors, cars and buildings with each other? It might sound daft at first, but if you are looking for your best energy-saving opportunities, that sort of analysis might be handy. Download a new article which explains how.

Twenty-year average degree days are used for forecasting purposes. Now for the first time they are available for heating and cooling, and to assorted base temperatures, for the 18 standard UK reporting regions. Download them free as an Excel worksheet

I enjoy a good read... And here are some of the books that have inspired and informed my career in energy management.

Too right... Some time ago the Economist ran a special feature on data overload, a subject which many energy managers will know only too much about, especially those who have invested in automatic meter reading. One quote from Herbert Simon stands out: "What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention". If you are drowning in data and would like to know how to see in an instant which bits of it need your attention, why not sign up to my training course on monitoring and targeting?

Each of these five column gauges can display a value (black rectangle) against a background showing threshold limits - in other words, as much information as a rotary-dial display occupying the same space as all five. Their compact design lets you create much-less-cluttered dashboard displays. Readers who have signed up to receive updates from me have been sent a link to an Excel workbook which does this kind of display...

Recruiting an energy specialist? Advertise here free. Send us details

Tips on reducing the cost of air conditioning

Excellent coverage of magnetic fuel treatment scams at Tony's Guide to Fuel Saving

Opportunities to showcase your energy expertise as a topic correspondent

Notes on economic pipe insulation thickness.

Design of a rig for explaining power factor

Added on-line calculator evaluating savings from insulation and draught-proofing

Page on improving thermal performance of buildings

Call for energy-saving case histories

An independent test report on magnetic combustion aids - thanks to John Crabb of Exeter University Centre for Energy and the Environment

renewables information page from Energy Services Direct

U-value calculator

Links to transport CO2 emission factors and additional fuel calorific-value data: jump to amended page

Do magnetic combustion enhancers work?

No. See also my longer answer. (V.V. 14 May 2006)

Material for your in-house energy newsletter

Short of material for your energy and environmental newsletter? This new section provides an assortment of generic paragraphs that you are welcome to copy and paste. We call it "reditorial".
(V.V. 10 May 06)

Electrical energy saving exercises

Sequencing fans with VSD
What's the best strategy for part-load operation of a bank of fans with variable-speed drives? Try this simulation. (V.V. 7 Jan 06)
True or false?
If you are leaving the room for less than ten minutes, it's cheaper to leave the fluorescent lights on... find out, feeding in your own assumptions about the size and duration of the startup surge. (V.V. 6 Jan 06)
Why poor power factor is a problem
If an electrical circuit suffers from poor "power factor", a higher current than necessary will need to be drawn in order to deliver the required power. This can increase power charges, or stress the supply infrastructure: see a simulation of the effect. (V.V. 6 Jan 06)

Sankey diagram software

The product recommended by one of our readers in October has been upgraded: click here for feedback from the user and news from the supplier.
(V.V. 2 Dec 05)

What does "carbon neutral" mean?"

T.E. asked me to provide a "watertight definition". Here goes:

A carbon-neutral process, building, or vehicle operates on energy sources which are not derived from fossil fuels. Alternatively, if fossil-derived fuels are used, their carbon emissions can be offset by deliberate activities that permanently absorb an equivalent amount of carbon; the combination can be claimed to be carbon-neutral.

This is rarely quite the whole story because the production of biofuels or uranium (for example) will entail using some fossil fuel. Interestingly, using electricity generated from landfill, mine offgas, and other 'fugitive' methane sources, is better than carbon-neutral because for each molecule of carbon dioxide the power station emits, it removes a molecule of methane which would have been over 20 times as damaging as a greenhouse gas. (V.V. 2 Dec 05)

Automatic controls

Controls can have a part to play saving energy for all users from the largest to the smallest. As well as the well-rehearsed topic of controlling heating lighting and other building services, there are often opportunities in industrial situations as well: see article. (V.V. 20/11/05)

Energy targeting for humidity-control systems

: if you manage energy consumption in a building with full air conditioning, you might need to take ambient humidity into account when monitoring for excess electricity consumption. This article describes a novel targeting method that has been successfully applied in two large sites of this kind. V.V. 10/11/05

Energy targeting tricks for industrial processes:

this article describes four scenarios in which it was not possible to use the simple straight-line activity-based targeting methods that would be used in some industries like papermaking and bread-baking. V.V. 31 Oct 05

Reference data

Physical constants, calorific values, units of measurement and other authoritative reference data are available free in the on-line version of Kaye & Laby 16th edition. (V.V. 27 Oct 05)

Back to basics: combustion

Optimising combustion efficiency is a low-cost way to ensure energy savings, and it something that every organisation needs to attend to. Read article (includes spreadsheet to download).

Mineral wool insulation:

The trade association Eurisol offers a number of useful publications for free download. I have also added them to my useful links page (V.V. 15/10/05)

Units conversion

I noticed this rather neat units-conversion program on a someone's PC; download free from joshmadison.com (V.V. 14/10/05)

Energy metering

I found this page on the Switch2 Energy Solutions web site rather useful: it summarises the attributes of various meters for electricity, gas, steam, compressed air, water, and oil. The Spirax Sarco Learning Centre has an extremely good module on flow metering. I've added both companies to my contacts page as well. As for electricity, Northern Design Electronics, a highly reputable supplier, have a downloadable PDF document on selecting and installing secondary kWh meters (V.V. 9/9/05)

What the...?

I have been rummaging in the cellar and found some historical curiosities relating to degree-day measurement - V.V., 6/9/05

"Cutting greenhouse gas emissions � a pragmatic view"

This article by Alastair Fells, Ian Fells and John Horlock cuts through the spin and lays bare what cuts are realistically feasible. From tce, July 2005. Reproduced by kind permission of Prof. Ian Fells (11 July 2005)

Accounting for the weather

Energy management leaflet 7 (PDF format) for readers who would like basic information about degree-day data to print out and file for reference. V.V., 3rd July 2005

It's not just the money

Saving energy can obviate capital expenditure, extend service life of equipment, and improve service quality (more...). 27 May 05

Could carbon supply constraints be the answer?

Comments please: this discussion paper suggests that we can only be sure of meeting our Kyoto obligations if we constrain total carbon supply to the UK economy, rather than just a proportion of CO₂ output as at present. 14 May, 2005

Meter conversion factors

(8 May 2005). Gives typical conversions from metered units (eg litres of oil) to kWh. View

Justifying cost of additional meters

(V.V., 6 May 2005). If meters are not being fitted as a matter of policy, but as discretionary investment to improve a monitoring and targeting scheme, how do you decide where it's worth fitting them? Click here for an article describing my "Risk of Undetected Loss" method.

Automatic monitoring and targeting

If properly implemented, aM&T should be a lot more than just an automatic meter reading system feeding some pretty charts. Actual consumption needs to be assessed against predicted. Click here to see main article by Vilnis Vesma.