Background Story
The client is recognized as one of the leading district cooling providers in the United Arab Emirates, with an extensive District Cooling Plants (DCPs) portfolio. They are actively pursuing opportunities to expand their operations across the Gulf region’s dynamic property development market. The client engaged Ark Energy for support to enhance plant efficiency and reduce energy consumption costs.
The project focused on one of the client’s DCPs, where an energy efficiency retrofit had been implemented. Following the retrofit, the ESCO initiated the Measurement and Verification (M&V) reporting process. However, multiple non-routine adjustments (NRAs) applied by the ESCO were found to be affecting the actual assessment of plant efficiency and energy savings.
Challenge
This issue arose because the ESCO introduced numerous NRAs in response to various incidents. As a result, the reported savings lacked transparency and did not accurately reflect the plant’s true efficiency. Additionally, the M&V report indicated that while the ESCO achieved the projected savings, it did not meet the target efficiency—contradicting the retrofit’s core objective of improving plant performance.
Main Objective
The primary goal was to minimize non-routine adjustments while ensuring no adverse impact on either the ESCO or the client. This approach aimed to provide a more accurate representation of actual savings and achieved energy efficiency in alignment with the Investment Grade Audit.
Approach
As the client’s consultant, Ark Energy collaborated with both the client and the ESCO to develop strategic mitigation measures based on the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP). These measures were carefully designed to enhance the accuracy and reliability of energy efficiency assessments, streamlining processes to yield more consistent results.
Some of the key measures implemented include the following:
- Developing a tailored operational incident log that facilitates the tracking and validation of both routine and non-routine incidents, classifying them based on a meticulous framework
- Creating guidelines to facilitate the calculation of Non-Routine Adjustments (NRAs) by the chosen Measurement and Verification (M&V) Option
Results
The results that were generated from the project include the following:
- Reducing the NRAs by 25%
- Reported the actual energy efficiency of the plant after retrofit
- Reducing the time for reviewing the NRAs by 35 %