CT 184

CT184-Energy Management, created in 2012, is made up of 25 members from different quarters of civil society, being chaired by Eng. chaired by the independent expert, Eng. Manuel Pestana.

 

By the beginning of 2020, this technical commission had translated 7 ISO international standards from the Energy Management family, including ISO 50001, and organized 3 seminars to disseminate Standardization in the field of energy management.

 

DGEG actively participates, from the very beginning, in this TC through the DSSE-Direção de Serviços de Sustentabilidade Energética, along with a considerable number of independent experts and representatives of large organizations and companies in Portugal.

 

The ISO 50001 standard: Energy management systems: Requirements and guidelines for their use is based on the ISO management system model, familiar to more than a million organizations worldwide, which have implemented management systems in references ISO 9001 (quality management), ISO 14001 (environmental management), ISO 22000 (food safety), ISO/IEC 27001 (safety information).

 

In particular, the ISO 50001 standard uses the PDCA - Plan-Do-Check-Act process in the continuous improvement of the energy management system. These features allow organizations to integrate energy management into global efforts to improve quality, environmental management and other challenges addressed by their management systems.

More specifically, the ISO 50001 standard provides a framework of requirements that allow organizations to:

 

• Develop a policy for more efficient use of energy;

 

• Set goals and objectives to meet the policy;

 

• Use data to improve understanding and decision-making regarding energy use and consumption;

 

• Measure results;

 

• Analyze the effectiveness of the policy;

 

• Continuously improve energy management.

 

The 2nd version of the NP EN ISO 50001 Standard, published in 2019, incorporates the HLS structure (high-level structure, in English), making it more compatible with the structures of the ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 standards, and it is expected that , with this adaptation, there is a greater demand for the ISO 50001 reference, on the part of organizations with integrated certifications.

 

Since the publication of the 1st version of the ISO 50001 Standard, in 2011, the theme of climate change has become increasingly central in the media debate and in the definition of public policies, and this theme is increasingly transversal to all sectors of society. Somehow, from ordinary citizens to decision-making bodies, there is a growing level of awareness regarding the contribution we can, and must, make to reduce the 'carbon footprint'.

 

If at the beginning of the last decade there was the emergence of a new generation of ISO standards dedicated to energy management, in 2017, 21,501 energy management systems were already certified in 94 countries, estimating that 7 have been saved TWh of direct final energy and avoided emissions of 4.3 million tons of CO2, estimating UNIDO (United Nations Organization for Industrial Development) that certified organizations have saved 100 million dollars, not counting possible benefits unrelated to the energy component. With regard to the Portuguese reality, in 2018 46 installations were certified, an increase of 7% compared to 2017.The secretary of CEM (Clean Energy Ministerial, a global intergovernmental forum with the purpose of accelerating the energy transition), Christian Zinglersen referred that “the improvement of energy performance is vital in the transition to a low carbon future“ and it could be add that it is also vital for the survival of the organizations themselves, not only because of the weight that energy costs have in the respective cost structures, but above all because the efficient use of energy is one of the productivity factors, along with human capital.

 

The director of UNIDO's energy department, Tareq Emtairah, estimates, based on several 'case studies' of certified companies in more than 15 countries, that the implementation of management systems in industry contributes to energy savings of 3% to 15% in the 2 years after the implementation of the energy management system, with little or no CAPEX, also identifying as the main barrier to the implementation of energy efficiency measures in the industry, the poor integration of energy management in the respective daily operational practices.

 

Consumers will increasingly assume a fundamental importance in the energy transition process by choosing to purchase products/services that incorporate/consume less energy. In this context, organizations with energy management systems certified under the ISO 50001 standard will not only have an economic advantage, but also a competitive one.

 

In addition, the authorities will play an important role in this energy transition process by promoting public policies that accelerate the transition to an economy that makes ever better use of the energy it produces, using less and less fossil energy sources, but also through penalizing measures, such as the application of taxation of greenhouse gases, or with measures that increase public awareness of changing habits, such as the implementation of labels/labels with information on the energy intensity of products and services .