Measurement and Verification of a Utility's Energy Management Program

摘要

Energy management, or demand-side management (DSM), is fast becoming a priority in South Africa. Eskom, South Africa's main utility, is embarking on a major drive to implement solutions in this field into the industrial, commercial, and residential sectors. Its target for the first year is to reduce national peak demand by 180 MW. The concept of performance contracting is not well established in South Africa and there is currently a resistance from financial institutions to fund these kinds of projects. DSM can, however, assist to establish performance contracting in South Africa, which would serve as a vehicle to stimulate implementation of DSM solutions when teamed up with financial institutions. The utility will initially provide the financial assistance required to establish the performance contracting industry, but later on financial assistance from the private sector will be crucial. Central to this issue is the measurement and verification (M&V) process. This article will describe the development of an M&V process for South Africa, and especially to M&V the impact of Eskom's energy management―or DSM program. The article will then describe the procedures and rationale behind M&V and how it was applied to DSM. The last part of the article is dedicated to the development of an M&V-centre that can show what the impact of DSM was on a local, regional and national level.