Join The Great Energy Survey
By Brian Lee, Director of Advanced Technology

Grab Those Bills

Everybody gets an electric bill.  Some folks get a natural gas bill.  Others may receive invoices for fuel deliveries.  You’re going to need at least two year’s worth of these if you want to get a good handle on things.

Locate Your Meters

A simple facility may have only one electric meter and, if the facility uses natural gas, a gas meter.  Complex facilities may have one meter for each building or even several meters per building! 

Create a simple sketch of the building or buildings at your facility and mark where each meter resides.  If you can, note what building (or spaces within a building) are associated with each meter right on the sketch.  Finally, figure out an approximate value for the square footage of each building (and, if required, space).  If you’ve got building plans stashed away in a file cabinet some where, pull them out and use them to determine these values.  Note these on your sketch.

Get the Survey Forms and Enter Your Data and Information

Send an e-mail to me, blee@asapauto.com and I will send you an excel workbook that contains several worksheets:

General Information:
Provide some basic information about your firm and about yourself!  A highly automated distribution center will certainly have a different energy use profile than a traditional warehouse storing raw materials for a factory.

Your location is important!  Climate can have a tremendous impact on energy consumption.

The Electric Meter Worksheet:
Make as many copies of this as you have meters (this holds true for the gas meter and fuel tank worksheets as well).  Your billing period may not start on the first of the month and end on the 30th.  That’s OK.  If the majority of the billing period falls in June, assign that bill to June.

Note the number of billing days and the number of operating hours in the billing period.  If you work 2 shifts Monday through Friday and one shift on Saturdays, then multiply the number of weekdays in the month by 16 and the number of Saturdays by 8 (Sundays receive no value).

Be sure to enter the number of kWh’s consumed and the peak average demand (in kW).  Both should be printed on your statement.

Enter the cost in $USD.  If you use Canadian $ or other currency please make a note on the worksheet.

The Gas Meter Worksheet:
Very similar to the electric meter worksheet.  Please note your units or measure.

The Fuel Tank Worksheet:
If you keep tank level logs, use those to fill this worksheet out.  If you only have invoices associated with fuel deliveries, no worries.  Usually the driver will note the tank level before and after he/she fills the tank and if you enter those values and note the dates when the deliveries were made, I’ll extrapolate the values to fill out the sheet (the former method is preferred).

Once you finish filling out the workbook save it and send it to me, blee@asapauto.com.  All information and data you provide will be treated as confidential.  We’ll write you back or give you a call if we have any additional questions. 

 

** Brian M. Lee is a licensed P.E. and has spent several years working in energy generation and energy management.  He is heading up the effort at ASAP Automation (and its sister company, Bastian Material Handling) to offer energy solutions to clients in light manufacturing, warehousing and distribution.