Companies, want to save on energy? Contact the NCPC!
Due to the energy crisis and ever-rising costs of energy both locally and globally, the National Cleaner Production Centre of South Africa (NCPC-SA) has put a strong focus on supporting the SA industry in managing its energy consumption.
Local companies can now participate in these programmes and benefit from these services, which are largely subsidised by government.
This will help companies to cut down on energy usage, which will benefit the profit margin.
The NCPC-SA is a sustainability programme of the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti), hosted at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
The programme promotes the implementation of resource efficiency and cleaner production (RECP) methodologies to assist industry to lower costs through reduced energy, water and materials usage, and waste management.
In partnership with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), the NCPC-SA has implemented the Industrial Energy Efficiency (IEE) Project in South Africa.
According to the project manager at the NCPC-SA, Faith Mkhacwa, the IEE Project is now in its fifth year.
“The project is an innovative and practical approach to address energy efficiency in industry. It was designed to help transform industry energy use patterns, helping them adopt a more systematic and holistic view of energy management within their organisations and plants,” explains Mkhacwa.
According to Mkhacwa, SA is one of 12 developing nations in which UNIDO is facilitating an energy management systems programme and the IEE Project South Africa is considered a flagship in the international efforts.
Others she says include Moldova, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Egypt, Indonesia and Ecuador.
“Through this approach, the IEE project has supported a number of companies that have become real success stories, EnMS victories if you will,” she says.
Mkhacwa says since its inception in 2010, the IEE Project has assisted industry in saving over R214-million in energy savings.
“This has been achieved through the promotion and implementation of Energy Management Systems (EnMS) and Energy Systems Optimisation (ESO) in around 45 plants from energy-intensive sectors,” she adds.
Mkhacwa gives the definitions of the systems:
* Energy Management System (EnMS) implementation
Here the company is assisted to develop and implement an energy management system in line with the ISO 50001 Energy Management Standard. Expert mentoring support and advice is provided via access to national and international experts in the field of EnMS. The programme is typically run over nine to 12 months.
Implementation can either be facilitated internally by the company under the mentorship and guidance of NCPC-SA appointed EnMS field specialists, or fast tracked by having an external EnMS field specialist implement the system directly with the company agreeing to serve as demonstration project to showcase the benefits of EnMS.
* Energy Systems Optimisation (ESO) implementation
This programme offers industry the opportunity to systematically target selected systems within their processing facilities and intimately interrogate their performance and effectiveness. Currently there are five high energy use systems optimisation offered, namely steam, compressed air, fans, pumps and electric motors.
“Companies participating in this programme are provided access to technical specialists in the respective fields to undertake assessments within their processes in order to identify improvement options for implementation. “These assessments are significantly shorter than the EnMS programme ranging from five to 15 days depending on the scale and complexity of the facility,” Mkhacwa further explains.
For those interested, visit the website (https://ncpc.co.za) and fill in the form “apply for an RECP assessment” where they we will be contacted and advised if they can be helped or be told where they can go.
– @TumeloBoksburg
