A Quick Update on ISO 50001 Energy Management Systems
ISO 50001:2011 is the new standard specifying requirements for organizations developing and Energy Management System or EnMS. ISO is the International Organization for Standardization which is based in Switzerland but is made up of organizations from ~ 163 member countries. The organization representing USA is NIST or the American National Standards Institute.
ISO 50001 is a plan-do-check-act procedural based management system standard that resembles ISO 14001 (environmental) and to a lesser degree, ISO 9001 (quality). There are 26 elements (clauses, sub-clauses, etc.) and 77 shall statements. Basically it calls for reducing energy use through a number of requirements including
• Establishing an energy baseline
• Calculating a representative energy reduction indicator (Energy Intensity)
• Creating Action Plans to help achieve energy reductions
• Managing Significant Energy Using equipment and systems and
• Other strategies
Department of Energy (DOE), Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) is also specifying energy requirements for companies that want to go beyond ISO 50001. Their Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) has two related programs
• Save Energy Now (SEN) – now known as “Better Buildings, Better Plants Program”
• Superior Energy Performance (SEP) (which is actually sponsored, U.S. Council for Energy-Efficient Manufacturing (U.S. CEEM) and indirectly, by DOE.
Basically, the above programs have energy reduction requirements above and beyond the 50001 standard including:
• SEN: 25% reduction in energy by 2020 (over ~ 10 years)
• SEP: 3-15% reduction in energy by 2012 (over 3 – 10 years)
In order to achieve SEP certification, there are several SEP standards that have come out, including:
• MSE (ISO) ISO 50021 - Additional requirements of SEP
• MSE (ISO) 50028 - Requirements for verification bodies
• SEP Certification Protocol
• SEP Measurement and Verification Protocols
• SEP Industrial Facilities Best Practice Scorecard
It is noteworthy, that DOE is participating in the ISO 50001 “arena” and hopefully, energy efficiency will be achieved by many US companies. However, only time will tell – if companies will implement both ISO 50001 and SEP.
Comments: