Electrical Demand Analysis Software Tool Suite and Automatic Report Generation for Energy Audits

Abstract

The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) defines an energy audit through a multi-tiered stratagem characterized by the level of in-depth analysis. The Level 1, or walkthrough survey is highlighted by low to no cost energy efficiency evaluations and a list of improvement measures that warrant further inquiry. Through the Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) at Texas A&M University, the Department of Energy's, Advanced Manufacturing Office maintains collaboration with academic entities to further the goal of reducing industrial and manufacturing energy consumption. As a result, the IAC at Texas A&M University performs ASHRAE Level 1 Energy Audits for manufacturing plants across gulf coast states. The IAC at Texas A&M University seeks to develop a series of electrical demand analysis and report generation software tools to optimize and enhance the electrical investigation inherent with establishing efficient industrial resource (electricity, water, natural gas) usage. Typically, such analysis are done through utility bill information, quantifying usage and capital charge characteristics, as well as usage trends over the course of the billing period. By establishing electrical analysis through the use of 15-minute or 30-minute demand data sets, available to industrial and manufacturing clients augmented with Interval Data Recorder (IDR) meters, the Industrial Assessment Center at Texas A&M has developed a suite of electrical analysis tools designed to increase analysis fidelity, identify pre-visit Energy Conservation Measures (ECM), establish unknown variables helpful in diagnosing ECMs, size systems design to optimize electrical usage, create a simple, user friendly interface and increase ECM implementation. While the conclusions and results for the following work and tools will not be known for some time, preliminary efforts have shown that the tools are effective in interpreting and diagnosing aberrant electrical usage. In particular, one instance in usage of the demand visualization tool diagnosed an issue where a facility was being charged double the amount of their typical demand. Supporting data, along with key IAC visits will be required to determine if the following tools are effective in increasing IAC implementation rates.