What Is An Energy Audit?

You might be familiar along with financial audit. You might know that it is an examination of accounts dealing with funds or property through officers appointed for the purpose and thus, a calling to account, an examination into one's action.

The ISO 9001:2000 describes audit as a systematic, independent and documented process for acquiring audit evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine the extent to that audit criteria are fulfilled. Here "independent" and "evidence" are not extremely relevant as an auditor could be independent or in- house. The concept of energy audit is same to that of the financial audit.

Energy auditing in a power utility includes

1          identifying energy losses and quantifying them;

2          segregating the losses within technical and commercial losses;

3          estimating the energy conservation potential of a system; and

4          proposing economically viable and attractive solutions.

The ultimate end result of such an exercise is to improve system performance, increase its efficiency and introduce design changes leading to renovation, modernization and upgrading the existing systems. Energy audit helps to evaluate the economics, and technical practicability of implementing the measures for energy loss and usage reductions. Therefore, it helps the utility to formulate prioritized recommendations for implementing procedure improvements to save energy.