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EVORA
Regulatory reporting can often feel a burden, and in areas which are more specialist, such as energy and carbon reporting, it can be a daunting experience.
Energy and carbon reporting regulations have principally been introduced to highlight the materiality of the impacts and provide visibility of the opportunities to deliver both energy and cost savings.
The reality is that many organisations only want to be compliant and it is only the few who see the opportunity to push forward opportunities and create a competitive advantage.
A good example of this is the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS).
ESOS (Article 8 in Europe) is upon us again in the guise of Phase 2 and will impact large undertakings both in the UK and Europe, requiring them, in simple terms, to measure 12 months of energy across their organisation and identify energy efficiency initiatives through energy audits. For more information on meeting compliance read our ESOS compliance guide.
ESOS has been developed to help organisations understand their total energy use and identify opportunities to deliver energy and cost savings, which is presented to senior management. It is hoped by the government that ‘low hanging fruit’ with pay backs of less than a year will be a no brainer to organisations to implement.
Although the deadline is the 5thDecember 2019, there are advantages in kicking off early with the energy audits, firstly to have a project plan in place to ensure you meet the deadline and secondly to identify cost-effective energy efficiency opportunities, which could provide immediate benefit to the financial bottom line. In Phase One, EVORA identified £2.8M of low cost energy savings for its clients.
Do you see ESOS as a cost to your business or an investment?
ESOS only requires you to identify the opportunities and ironically many organisations did not implement the initiatives found in Phase One. This turns ESOS regulation into a cost rather than an investment – a significant missed opportunity.
An example of the quick win opportunities is highlighted by work EVORA delivered in collaboration with a property management company to deliver an energy efficiency programme utilising EVORA’s energy management software, SIERA. The graph below displays the weekly energy profile at the office building (110 Queen Street in Glasgow) before (light blue line) and after interventions (dark blue line) were brought about by the improvement programme.
Significant improvements in the energy profile can be seen, especially at the weekend, which has delivered savings of 30% (greater than £30,000 actual savings in the year) without any capital expenditure. This was achieved despite increased occupancy at the property throughout the year and payback was less than three months.
For more information on how we delivered these savings read the full case study here.
This is certainly not the exception and we have worked with an array of sectors including power generation, real estate, retail and hotel & leisure to optimise energy efficiency, often achieving surprising results.
