The EMIS Audit

Defining the Energy Account Centres . Definition of appropriate EACs is absolutely
fundamental to EMIS Implementation. Energy Account Centres need to be logical
levels at which to manage energy resource use as well as reflect the organization
structures and responsibilities within the client organization.
Assessments of Metering and Data Capture Systems and Data Analysis and Reporting
Systems. Making sure that timely management decisions are made on the basis of
valid data and information.
Identification of feasible and desirable changes. The recommendations need to be
framed within the overall objectives and aspirations of the client organization and to
be coherent with the importance of utility costs to the organization, i.e. a
CDN 2,000,000 EMIS implementation plan is unlikely to be acceptable to an
organization whose energ y spend is CDN 5,000,000 per year;
Estimating the Costs and benefits from EMIS implementation. This should include:
estimating of EMIS savings using statistical techniques such as regression analysis
and additional savings that may be sustained by EMIS su ch as behavioral changes.
The costs will include changes to the metering and data capture s ystems,
implementation of data analysis and reporting routines, and management skills
development.
Reporting and presenting the findings both initially prior to lea ving the site and in
more detail within the report. W hat this means is that the report should contain no
major surprises for the client organization and should be an accurate reflection of the
subjects addressed during the audit.
„Selling‟ the EMIS Implementation Plan. The EMIS Audit is the first stage in a process
of determining the business value of EMIS and hence persuading customers to
implement it. If the initial business case looks promising the next step is an EMIS
Implementation Plan. The role of the EMIS Audit is also to “sell” the idea of an EMIS
Implementation Plan to the customer.
In this section we address the mechanics of the EMIS Audit introducing the assessment
templates. The Assessment Templates can be found in Appendix 3.
In Section 5, Developing the Business Case the templates are used to develop
recommendations for the client organization. Remember that the assessment templates
are not an end in themselves; their purpose is to provide a structured assessment
methodology and to identif y gaps in the current practices of the client site. These gaps
should then guide the auditor to identification of appropriate recommendations for
change.
4.1 Foreword – Is and Ought…
One of the difficulties in providing a manual for EMIS auditing is the range of
organizations it has to be relevant to. At one end of the spectrum will be the
relative novices who have very little or even nothing in the way of energy
management information s ystems and who simply rely on the monthly energy
invoices to provide them with information concerning their patterns of consumption.
At the other end will be those organizations who already have a functional EMIS in
place who are undertaking the audit as a means of verifying that the s ystem is still
fit for purpose.
The Assessment Templates for the EMIS Audit can be used:
� For the mature organizations as a comparison with what is currently the case
� For novice organizations as a description of what ought to be the case.
Sections 4.2, 4.5 and 4.6 provide some background to the A ssessment Templates,
the scoring and criteria are to be found in Appendix 2.
EMIS Ma nu al Page | 27
Part A