Energy Audit | needs | Limitations | process

Energy Audit :

~ The energy audit is used as an effective tool to carry out the
1. Energy management for the conservation of energy.

2. Locate the areas of energy consumption.
3. Locate the areas of losses.
4. Find the areas to conserve energy.
5. Come out with suggestions for energy conservation

Need of Energy Audit :

~ With increase in population of world, the gap between the
~ This energy gap can be reduced by efficient utilization of the available energy and by reducing the energy wastage with the
~ The energy audit can be useful in suggesting the optimum utilization of the existing fuels and suggest use of new types
~ The energy audit can also help in locating the areas where the losses are high and suggest measures to reduce them.

Approach to Energy Audit :

~ The stepwise approach towards the planning of energy audit as follows.
step 1: Planning:
~ All the work involved in the energy audit should be properly planned because the success of energy audit depends largely
~ Planning involves paper work, visiting various places of co-ordination of various units working simultaneously.
step 2: Data Collection :
~ The next step is to collect authentic data for the analysis and record.
~ The data collection includes the collection of information about the cost of production, cost of energy consumed and the total energy consumed.
~ The data about energy wastage, loss of energy etc. is also collected from different sites.
step 3: Analysis of data and action plan :
~ The collected data should be analyzed to come to certain conclusions.
~ Energy audit should be prepared in the form of a report and presented in front of the management for taking the necessary action.

Instruments used for Energy Audit:

~ Instrumentation plays an important role in energy audit.
~ Broadly two types of instruments are used for the energy audit namely :
1. General instruments
2. Electrical instruments
~ The general instruments include the level indicators, flow meters, stop watches, pressure gauges, thermometers etc.
~ Whereas electrical instruments include the voltmeters, ammeters, kw meters, energy meters and power factor meter.
~ The instruments are generally portable instruments with sophisticated techniques such as a microprocessor or a microcontroller.

Process of Conducting the Energy Audit :

~ The first step in conducting the energy audit is to compute all the losses taking into account the actually measured instrument data.
~ Second step is to compare these losses with the estimated losses which have been obtained by simulation networks.
~ The third step is to study the areas of higher losses obtained in the first two steps and study them in detail, element by element.

Limitations on Energy Audit :

~ The limitations or constraints in carrying out the energy audit curately and reliably are as follows :
1. It is not possible to take readings 0f all meters simultaneously.
2. Accuracy of the meters is not as high as expected.
3. It is not possible to meter the data from a section of consumers for example the farmers.
4. The data keeps changing continuously with time.
5. Meters used for energy measurement become faulty or nonworking.
6. It is essential to use a standard computer software to carry out energy audit. Unfortunately such software’s are not available.