Introduction

Establishing a sound energy management system for industrial enterprises lays the foundation for the healthy development of enterprises. It helps break technical, institutional and market barriers between internal energy subsystems or those within industrial parks, promotes comprehensive energy optimization of enterprises, guarantees production safety, enables enterprises to cut energy costs, improve energy efficiency, and create economic and social values for green production.

1 Current Status of Energy Management in Industrial Enterprises

Against the backdrop of tight energy supply, energy management serves as an auxiliary functional module of enterprises, whose primary responsibility is to guarantee the stable supply of energy and electricity required for production. As public awareness of energy conservation continues to rise and competent government authorities strengthen supervision over energy conservation and emission reduction, new market-oriented directions have emerged for corporate energy management, such as the carbon emission market, direct electricity trading and the development of the green manufacturing system. Nevertheless, the following problems still exist in corporate energy management.

1.1 Insufficient Allocation of Full-time Energy Management Personnel

Corporate energy management should be undertaken by professional technical engineers, yet most enterprises are severely understaffed with specialized energy management professionals. The Measures for the Administration of Energy Conservation in Key Energy-Using Entities stipulates that key energy-using entities shall set up energy management posts. In practice, however, energy management work is undertaken on a part-time basis in some enterprises, and this phenomenon is even more prevalent among other energy-using entities. Even full-time energy managers often concurrently perform tasks including statistics, metering, energy audit and equipment management.

1.2 Room for Improvement of Electric Energy Meters

The Shanghai Municipal Energy Conservation Regulations requires energy-using entities to formulate an energy metering management system, equip and use legally verified qualified energy measuring instruments in accordance with provisions, strengthen the management of such instruments and conduct regular verification as required. Nevertheless, due to insufficient systematic training on energy metering knowledge or lack of professional management experience, enterprises encounter various problems in the deployment and calibration of energy metering instruments. Manual meter reading is still widely adopted for energy data collection in enterprises. Effective data transmission, timely data analysis and energy cost accounting remain to be further improved.

1.3 Development Trends of Energy Management

From the perspective of competent government authorities, energy management has gradually shifted from the previous planned management model to a supervision-enhanced model. At the level of energy-using entities, energy management can be roughly divided into several development stages according to varying priorities: target fulfillment stage, statistical analysis stage, energy-saving technical renovation stage, intelligent management stage and comprehensive shared management stage. The same enterprise may be at different stages of energy management in different periods, and different enterprises may also stay at disparate development stages in the same period.

Target Fulfillment StageIn the planned economy era, corporate energy management was distinctly characterized by planned quotas. Superior authorities decomposed total energy quotas tier by tier, and subordinate entities arranged production in accordance with energy quota plans, mainly due to insufficient domestic energy supply. At present, quota arrangements still apply to summer peak load regulation in some regions.

Statistical Analysis StageWith the development of the market economy and deepening reforms of enterprise management, enterprises have gradually attached importance to the correlation between energy consumption and products, output and production scheduling. The government has also gradually set up an energy statistical system. On the basis of statistics, enterprises analyze energy consumption patterns and arrange production rationally. This ensures energy supply, reduces energy waste and cuts energy consumption costs. However, statistical analysis in this stage mostly relies on manual account books, and only a small number of key energy-consuming entities have built energy metering data acquisition platforms.

Energy-saving Technical Renovation StageAs energy conservation awareness grows across society and enterprise production technologies advance, competent government authorities keep strengthening energy conservation management.