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Demonstration at EMEX show

The essence of EMEX: demand control is key to business energy costs

By Daniel Bentham, Head of R&D Smart Customers at EDF Energy | Posted November 12, 2015

We exhibited at the Energy Management Exhibition (EMEX) on November 11-12 so we could meet with visitors, listen to their needs and identify opportunities to make savings on their energy consumption.

EMEX is one of THE events for organisations looking to reduce their energy consumption – now in its second year; the event is aimed at helping businesses:

  1. negotiate better contracts

  2. implement energy efficient technologies

  3. employee training on energy efficiency

Key insights

We learnt that organisations attended EMEX to learn about many different areas – not surprising as energy is such a diverse topic and energy managers need to understand more and more.

According to CEB Global, the number of stakeholders is increasing – an average number of decision-makers in B2B buying is 5.4 which can only make energy managers’ jobs harder in the long-term.  We think we’ve a tool to help that process.

Visitors to our stand share many interesting issues with us – some have made a lot of progress on an energy journey and are now looking for that next idea.  Others wanted to know more about EMR, like how to participate in the Capacity Market or to better understand how to manage rising non-energy costs.

Our stand also prompted visitors to consider where they are on the energy journey: Optimise, Reduce and Generate.

We think that’s the right route because it helps solve organisations’ stakeholder buy-in problems and other strategy challenges, such as:

  1. defining your business context and decision-making parameters like finance and paybacks.

  2. agreeing on the priority order of identified risks and opportunities.

  3. communicating the resulting strategy;

  4. the list goes on.

So what about those 5.4 stakeholders in the decision-making unit?

Well, our Energy Canvas helps get all stakeholders together to talk about energy strategy including risk, which helps all the stakeholders to agree how to tackle your organisation’s approach to your energy strategy.  We can talk you through it.

I was delighted to have the chance to speak in the Energy and the Built Environment theatre and I covered:

How much? How to comprehensively control your energy costs in today’s market

I took visitors on a deep-dive into why most of organisations’ energy cost control efforts should focus on managing the volume and the way they use energy, rather than what they pay for (because hedging strategies can be automated).

Walking through the Energy Canvas, I explained the need for integrationalignment and engagement which should be at the heart of energy managers’ plans to purchase their energy.

It’s important that an integrated plan aligns to what your business trying to achieve, supported by the people that create and implement energy strategy in their organisations.

Which prompted a question about managing risk in today’s volatile market; in my answer I stressed that having a clear strategy to manage risk is more important than ever due to the rise and unpredictability of non-energy costs.

Energy Strategy: How to create integrated programmes that outperform piecemeal initiatives

In this presentation, I highlighted to visitors that a well-integrated energy strategy lets you pick the best fruit, not just the low hanging wins.

If you'd like to view my presentations at EMEX, you can get in touch with me.

Other insights at EMEX

In a separate, but apt presentation, Lord Redesdale, CEO of the Energy Managers Association (EMA), highlighted that 40% of effort should be on behavioural change – which means culture change and for that you need all the senior stakeholders on board.

He explained the workings of 40:20:40 - a guide to how energy efficiency can be managed properly.

This is how the ratio is structured:

Energy efficient products (40): “Are understood to be a quick gain and the most common solution to achieve energy savings. Companies see energy efficiency as a process based on efficient equipment, energy efficient lighting might limit the amount of power used, but switching the lights off whilst not needed, must be the ultimate goal.”

Building control systems (20): “Often used to match power-use to occupancy of a building, but even these systems can fail if unusual events happen or work patterns shift.” 

Behaviour change (40): “Behaviour change is the most flexible and cheapest solution to energy management, but is often ignored as too effortful to do.”

In summary

It was a fantastic couple of days at EMEX, full of insights, great conversations and enlightening discussions with our stand visitors.

We’re optimistic that our presence at this year’s EMEX has led to future opportunities for collaboration and of course, providing companies with a well-balanced and well thought-out energy strategy that will lead to significant reductions in energy costs for those who implement our Energy Canvas.

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